Opinion

By E Revathi and Venkatanarayana Motkuri The State government has taken up an important task of strengthening public school education under the flagship programme of Mana Ooru-Mana Badi and Mana Basti-Mana Badi. In the aftermath of Covid 19, there has been a massive shift from private schooling to public schools due to loss in household […]

By Dr Sonal Mobar Roy Early childhood development is a prerequisite for an individual’s growth and development that would ultimately also reflect on the country’s human resource. Hence, the government has been focusing on planned interventions in this direction. The Integrated Child Development Scheme is one such programme that started in 1975. It provides food, […]

By Pramod K Nayar When Sue Coe, a celebrated artist known for her activist-art against animal cruelty in works like Factory Pharm (2001), set out to capture the horrors of Covid-19, she did so with a realism that can only be termed traumatic. What Coe does is to align human suffering from the virus with the history […]

By Arun Sinha The noted economist Surjit Bhalla’s argument that food subsidy has wiped out extreme poverty in India is highly erroneous. Bhalla, who arrived at this conclusion in a recent study done for the International Monetary Fund with two other economists, wants to make us believe that if only the stomachs of the poor […]

By Gisèle Yasmeen Nearly one in three people in the world did not have access to enough food in 2020. That’s an increase of almost 320 million people in one year and it’s expected to get worse with rising food prices and the war trapping wheat, barley and corn in Ukraine and Russia. Climate change […]

By Srividhya S Millets are regarded as heritage crops owing to their cultivation and use as a staple food since ancient times in several parts of the world, especially India. They are being cultivated on varying scales in various parts of the country, mainly by tribal and marginal farmers. But sadly, their place in the […]

By Dhananjay Tripathi The Russia-Ukraine war has stirred international politics, and we are slowly but surely entering into a new world order that will be multipolar where India’s role is critical. The recent visit of foreign dignitaries to New Delhi, including foreign ministers of China, Russia, and the UK, underlines the significance accorded to India […]

As robo sapiens, AIs and other such products of human efforts populate the earth, on what grounds do we delimit the notion of life or the human?

By M Sridhar Acharyulu “Had I wanted, the Telangana Assembly and government could have collapsed. I could have simply not permitted the Legislative Assembly session to commence on the day as the government wanted. Then on the grounds of exceeding 6 months prescribed gap between two sessions, the Assembly could have automatically dissolved”. This was […]

By Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao The Governor of Telangana met the Prime Minister and union Home Minister, and later addressed the media that (her) government is not bestowing due respect to her. She also mentioned protocol violations to her. The Governor further said that since she was not satisfied with the recommendation of the government […]

By Joseph Wright, Abel Escribà-Folch Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents foreign policymakers with few good options to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin, or to deter these types of aggressions in the future. The US government, for example, continues to push for additional sanctions on Russia in response to news of Russian military atrocities, even though […]

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 […]