Opinion

By Amitava Mukherjee The Congress is now going through a customary charade. As it happens after every other election, a group of senior Congress leaders has voiced its despondency at the miserable performance of the party at the recently concluded State elections. This is not the first time that the leaders feel ‘pangs of conscience’ […]

By Nandini Nayak India’s food subsidy programmes have the capacity to respond to increased demand. Thoughtful adjustment would reap large-scale benefits. Covid-19 lockdowns aggravated food deprivation in India. The pandemic also revealed opportunities to expand the country’s food subsidy programmes. India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) offers subsidised foodgrains to eligible households. Public pressure during Covid-19 […]

It is time to recognise migrants and the rising cases of injustice against them

By Reetika Khera India’s school meals programme is ubiquitous, helping deliver food to millions. It faces threats from multiple angles. It would be hard to find a larger or more universal school meals programme than that in India. Until Covid-19 hit, more than 87% of children in rural government schools were being served the ‘Mid-Day […]

By Pramod K Nayar Imagining a world without humans, a fictional character says: “It’s not the end of the world at all. It’s only the end of us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan’t be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.” This would […]

By Arun Sinha The Congress is not a sinking ship. It is a ship trapped in a fierce storm. It is taking severe beatings but it is not ripped apart yet and it is not going down below the surface. It is like a battered Air India waiting for a Tata to take it out […]

By HS Shergill, Varinder Sharma Commercial food production anywhere in the world requires significant government subsidies. India is no exception. Demand for foodgrains in India will outstrip supply in the coming decades. And yet some of India’s high-level policy economists still believe self-sufficiency is a natural and spontaneous feature of Indian agriculture. They say strategies […]

By Arun Sinha Ramchandra Guha, one of our most highly respected historians and political commentators, recently suggested that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi “quit politics immediately” in order to save the Congress and democracy. Although many other political commentators have come to seriously question the vote-catching ability of the three Gandhis, Guha has […]

By Amitava Mukherjee Bhagwant Mann, the new Chief Minister of Punjab, will have to face the daunting task of eliminating the drug menace which has become the greatest social threat in the strategic State. Even in 2020, Punjab stood second in the country so far as registration of cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic […]

By Kim Kaivanto President Vladimir Putin’s demand that “unfriendly countries” henceforth pay for Russian gas in rubles has had several immediate effects. With the Europeans given one week to switch to paying in the Russian currency, it has driven up the price of natural gas, making it more expensive for them to maintain the sanctions […]

By Ian Hall Few of Australia’s relationships with countries in Asia have progressed so far and so fast as its ties with India. Over a decade, Canberra and New Delhi have constructed a broad strategic partnership, catalysed by shared concerns about China. The recent virtual summit between Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Indian […]

By Jose-Francisco Jimenez-Diaz In all ages there have been public leaders. It is a historical constant and a recurring sociocultural fact. Human societies require leaders, at different levels, who guide and inspire personal actions. One of the central purposes of political leadership is to contribute to social cooperation and collective action. For this reason, each […]

By Flavio Macau Russia’s first McDonald’s store in opened in 1990, just months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a potent symbol that the Cold War was ending and a great ideological wound healing. Now every McDonald’s in Russia is closed, as nations and corporations reduce, suspend or sever ties in response […]

By Susana de Sousa Ferreira On March 3, 2022, the European union made a historic decision for international protection with the approval of the Temporary Protection Directive that applies to Ukrainian citizens fleeing war. The member states have mobilised in an extraordinary way in response to this conflict, implementing a coordinated and unique strategy, focused […]

By Richard Taylor, Mohammad Shamsudduha Though water is central to our everyday lives and indeed life itself, we often mark World Water Day on March 22 not by reminding ourselves of all that water brings, but of the consequences of its absence or contamination. As the American polymath Benjamin Franklin noted, “when the well runs […]

By B Yerram Raju The lockdown in China, and the fresh virus outbreak in Hong Kong, Australia, the UK, Germany etc, pose a severe threat and demand extreme caution. Ukraine war remains a global concern. The ripple effects of the war are seen in the central banks raising their policy rates in the US, UK […]

By Arun Sinha The BJP’s claim that its victory in Uttar Pradesh was a victory against casteism does not have any legs to stand on. It was definitely a tempestuous victory against the Samajwadi Party, which while relying predominantly upon the Yadav vote, tried to mobilise Other Backward Classes, but that victory was not a […]

By Surajit Das The National Statistical Office (NSO) of the Government of India released a press statement on March 14 on the unemployment rate. According to the periodic labour force survey (PLFS) data, the unemployment rate stood at 13.4% in urban areas in the financial year 2020-21. Female unemployment rate was over 15% and for […]

By Jaspreet Kaur The results of the Punjab Assembly elections this time were astonishing as well as historic. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) not only won 92 seats with a 42% vote share, it also defeated many veterans, including SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal and former Congress chief minister Amarinder Singh, who has now floated […]

By Amitabh Mattoo The war in Ukraine may reverse non-proliferation measures including the fragile détente between India and Pakistan. When the ‘father’ of the atomic bomb, scientist J Robert Oppenheimer, witnessed the first nuclear test in New Mexico in July 1945, he was reminded of Hinduism’s most important text, the Bhagvat Gita. “Now I am […]

By J R Janumpalli The Ministry of Jal Shakti issued a gazette notification on July 15, which gives complete control of all projects in the basins of Godavari and Krishna in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) and the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB). The notification usurping all the rights […]

By Seela Subba Rao Despite the enactment of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, the practice of using direct human labour in cleaning sewage and septic tanks prevails. The Safai Mitra Suraksha Challenge, launched in 2020, was aimed at mechanising the cleaning operation of septic and sewage tank in […]

By Srinivas Rao Mahankali Even as the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the world and ravaged global economies, it ushered in winds of positive change for India’s startup ecosystem. According to recent reports, 43 startups were identified as unicorns in 2020, and 42 others in 2021, making it a bumper period for homegrown startups. The […]

Women make up the majority of the world’s poor and are more reliant on natural resources