By Tirthankar Mitra The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for MBBS and BDS courses was held on June 21. About 20 lakh students appeared in it which was a re-test held a few weeks after allegations of leakage of questions led to the cancellation of the first examination....
By Ashis Biswas A major outbreak of dengue fever is sweeping over South Asian countries this year; in India, the reduced rainfall during the current weak monsoon season has emerged as a negative factor. While the number of affected persons and dengue-related deaths are significantly higher in India in...
By Satyaki Chakraborty Low-tech, low-cost strategies could prevent 400 million falls at home, 8.5 million new type 2 diabetes cases and 2.4 million dementia cases by 2040, while unlocking $5.8 trillion in healthcare savings and $645 billion in productivity gains. Yet much of that opportunity remains unrealized because governments...
By Nantoo Banerjee It is surprising that the government took over three months’ time to issue a directive to Indian shipping companies to restrict operation through conflict-stricken waters in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz following lethal US attacks on a foreign vessel causing the death of three...
By Kalyani Shankar The Indian Opposition is facing considerable political challenges due to ongoing conflicts within its parties. This complex political landscape, where party switching and defections have become common, is understandably worrying for many. Such actions can erode trust, weaken accountability, and put our democratic stability at risk....
By Nitya Chakraborty Pro-Trump far right billionaire lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella won the Presidential elections run off on Sunday defeating the candidate of the ruling Left coalition Ivan Cepeda by a narrow margin. Espriella got 49.66 per cent of the votes while Cepeda got 48.7 per cent. The...
By Arun Srivastava Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 20 at Tarkeshwar near Kolkata spun a fresh yarn, promising to create a “New Bengal” (Viksit Bangla), as he christened the day “Paschimbanga Divas” (West Bengal Day), since it was on this day that BJP/RSS icon Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who...
By T N Ashok Few issues in contemporary Indian politics carry consequences as profound as the impending delimitation exercise. While elections dominate headlines every few months, delimitation has the potential to alter the balance of political power for decades. It is not merely about drawing constituency boundaries. It is...
By Tirthankar Mitra KOLKATA: It is political theatre of absurd in Bengal as the former Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo is witnessing the desertions of TMC leaders close to her and reports coming in from the districts of the state of the closure of the party offices or...
By T N Ashok When Prime Minister Narendra Modi says India must “build arms and not just buy them,” he is articulating perhaps the most important shift in Indian defence policy since economic liberalization in 1991. The statement is not merely about weapons. It is about sovereignty, technology, strategic...
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A budget that proclaims from the housetop out and out privatization for all the problems plaguing Kerala. That is the best description for the maiden budget presented last week by Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan who is also the Finance Minister. To put it in...
By Asad Mirza The assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in February 2026 has produced an irony as profound as it is unexpected – the killing of the world’s most prominent Shia leader by a US-Israeli strike has, at least momentarily, dissolved sectarian walls that decades of theological dispute and...
By Arun Srivastava The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) strategy of fracturing regional parties serves as a quaternary-track political manoeuvre designed to secure long-term constitutional dominance, dismantle the opposition architecture INDIA bloc, give a shape to its long cherished desire to create Bharat free of active opposition and finally, consolidating...
By K Raveendran There can hardly be a sharper symbol of institutional drift than the National Testing Agency conducting a mock drill a day before the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination. What should have been an assurance mechanism has instead become an admission of fragility. A mock drill is meant to...
By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers When Rahul Gandhi turned 56 this week, the celebrations were almost startling in their simplicity. There was a cake. There were party workers. There were photographs. His sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, posted a warm social media message calling him her “darling brother.” The day passed...
By Asad Mirza A fragile diplomatic breakthrough between Washington and Tehran has collided head-on with Israeli military aggression in Lebanon, casting a long shadow over what could have been the most consequential peace settlement in the Middle East in a generation. In the arc of modern Middle Eastern diplomacy,...
By Dr Arun Mitra After nearly 15 months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was invited as a special guest to attend the G7 meeting, since India is not a member of this group. During the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump held a brief conversation. The...
By Pradeep Kapoor LUCKNOW: Is BJP trying to divert the attention from the alleged loot of donations at Ram Temple at Ayodhya and spreading news about possible split in Samajwadi Party.? At a time when entire nation is watching developments in Ayodhya about great loot of the donations BJP...