By K Raveendran Deductive logic has gone for a toss when it comes to forecasting international oil price behaviour. Defying all expectations of a spike, crude prices have hovered just about the same level as last year this time, which means the commodity is trading in the $70s range....
By Arun Kumar Shrivastav The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, suffered hacking of its servers on November 23. Over 50 of these servers that store patient data and run hospital management software were out of order. It resulted in a complete shutdown of computers at...
By Sushil Kutty Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the opportunity of his lifetime to make a global difference to India’s status on the world stage when India assumes the G20 presidency on December 1 for a period of one year. The Prime Minister himself has called it a “huge...
By James M Dorsey Protest on the soccer pitch has proven to be a mixed blessing for World Cup host Qatar, exposing double standards in the Gulf state’s position as well as that of its critics. Qatar embraced protest when it supported Qatari policies, such as the Gulf state’s...
By Harihar Swarup Up until October, Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka, 47, was quite content living in the quiet life. Cocooned in his room at his Colombo home, surrounded by books and his stories, he’d at most of his day talking to no one apart from himself and his...
By Branko Marcetic No one should’ve honestly believed Elon Musk would use his ownership of Twitter to champion free speech. Besides the fact that the man is a professional bullshitter, it was always dubious that a guy who slaps employees with gag orders and bars them from wearing pro-union...
By W. T. Whitney Jr. “Sometimes there are revolutions but people keep on thinking the same way. But now we are seeing a peacetime transformation process and there is a change of mentality… I said yesterday that we are winning the battle against racism, classism, discrimination. This is not...
By Kalyani Shankar Will a potential Joe Biden versus Donald Trump presidential race happen in 2024 in the United States? It is the question after the two current and former presidents have thrown themselves in the presidential ring two years in advance. Democrats and Republicans are already preparing for...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak The conclusion of India’s pre-budget consultations on November 28, 2022 have left the Union Ministry of Finance in such a worried state of mind that it lost its temper on the demand and boycott by the joint forum of 10 Central Trade Unions. A government...
By Arun Srivastava Last week Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren got a relief from the Supreme Court with it setting aside a high court order upholding the maintainability of a public interest litigation (PIL) for a probe against the chief minister in a mining lease case but Hemant is...
By Sushil Kutty ‘Gaslighting’ is associated with ‘disorientation’. It is also closely related to “fake news”, and conspiracy theories. It is “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone or a group of people for one’s own advantage.” Like filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri, who stands accused of gaslighting Indians into...
By Ashis Biswas In Darjeeling Hamro Party (HP) leader Ajoy Edward has revived the call for a separate Gorkha state in the North Bengal hills, accusing the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) of backing ‘dubious elements’ like Anit Thapa, current head of the Gorkha Territorial Authority (GTA). Mr. Edward while...
By L S Herdenia BHOPAL: Despite being the BJP’s bastion, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra is getting a good response in Madhya Pradesh. The most enthusiastic welcome was accorded by Indore whose corporation is controlled by the BJP. Besides majority of MLAs and Lok Sabha seats is represented by...
By Ashok B Sharma Indian Navy has become active in the Indo-Pacific Region following government’s focus in the region with emphasis on its Act East Policy. It convened a three-day Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue 2022 (IPRD 2022) in New Delhi from November 23, this year, in which there were participants...
By Satyaki Chakraborty The struggling leftwing government in Venezuela led by President Nicholas Maduro scored a major political victory on November 26 when the government leaders reached a social agreement in Mexico city with the rightwing opposition of the country’s national assembly to create a fund managed by the...
By Nantoo Banerjee India may rank lowly at 104th position on the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) men’s table, dropped from 94th in 1996, its enthusiasm over the game is probably among the highest in the world. Over 300 million Indians, numbering close to the entire population of...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak A joint forum of ten central trade unions — including, INTUC, AITUC, TUCC, SEWA, HMS, CITU, AICCTU, LPF, AIUTUC and UTUC —has decided to boycott the virtual pre-budget consultation with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on November 28, demanding a physical meeting with reasonable time to...
By Arun Srivastava With the assembly elections in Gujarat reaching its last leg, the BJP Chanakya Amit Shah took to the trusted lane of communalism, this time with the precise goal to communalise the Gujarati youth. With this mission he even dug up the past and did not hesitate...