By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The World Cup football is in full cry. So is the political soccer game in Kerala. The only difference is that, unlike in the Qatar extravaganza, political parties in the state, especially the Congress, are busy scoring self goals! The latest episode which betrays the...
By Sushil Kutty China is five to India’s one. Look at China on any parameter, and India lags. Whether it is the size of the economy or defence capabilities. Even in soft power, like sport and films, China outshines India. Most importantly, China is challenging the USA for global...
By Harihar Swarup Dr M. Srinivas, the newly appointed director of the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, comes across as the quintessential topper. A man of humble origins, Srinivas started in a Kannada medium school and later became an MBBS gold medallist. The 56-year-old talks about what makes...
By James M Dorsey As Indonesia passed the chairmanship of the Group of 20 (G-20) to India earlier this month, major Muslim and Hindu organisations, some backed by their governments, are battling to define the role of religion in global politics and whether the world’s significant faiths need reform...
By Chauncey K. Robinson The phrase “Me Too” was originally coined in 2006 by Black sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke. It was used as a way to empower victims of sexual assault to not live in the shadows in shame or fear. Yet, it wasn’t until 2017...
By Kalyani Shankar Despite trying hard for decades, the BJP has little or no presence in the southern states except ruling Karnataka. The South contributes 129 seats, of which the BJP has only 29. Notably, political churning is happening in Tamil Nadu, where BJP is all set to capture...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak Union Government has begun budget exercise for the year 2023-24 in the right earnest with narrowed options and very high stakes for the ruling establishment led by PM Narendra Modi since it would be the last full budget before the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The...
By Sushil Kutty It’s confirmed. Elections, combined with the politics swirling around them, brings the worst out of politicians, and political parties. Witness what has been happening in Gujarat, and in Delhi with the MCD elections, which has a 15 year anti-incumbency pulling back on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s...
By Arun Kumar Shrivastav The right to privacy in the time of the internet boom is difficult to enforce. But governments around the world are working to reverse this and restore control in the hands of users. Between tech companies and governments, there is a rush to take...
By Arun Srivastava Spectre of the BJP losing power in Gujarat has made Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the strongman of Indian politics uneasy. Little doubt this baffling transformation was conjured by the success of Bharat Jodo Yatra. Only a couple of days back he was looking at Rahul’s Yatra...
By Claudia Horn As world leaders gathered for this year’s COP27 climate summit in Egypt, the sister of jailed British-Egyptian activist AlaaAbd el-Fattah addressed the following words to the international media: At this conference, the most vulnerable are supposed to negotiate with the most powerful. I want to say...
By Nantoo Banerjee The government may disagree, India’s economic performance in the last eight years has proved to be rather lacklustre. It has been facing a real challenge from the ever expanding black economy, substantially eating up the revenue income of both the national and state governments. Unaccounted money...
By Nitya Chakraborty Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee has done it again. His third book’ The Song of the Cell’ published this year has once again mesmerized the doctors, scientists and the common readers much more than the impact he had with his first two books ‘The Emperors of all Maladies’...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak Outcome of CoP27 makes a history in agreeing on setting up a loss and damage fund to help the developing countries, but failed to agree on greater actions to successfully deal with the rising temperature of the Earth, that the Paris Agreement of 2015 has...
By Arun Srivastava Like other incongruities, the Narendra Modi government once again has resorted to the same tactics and made Reserve Bank of India answerable for implementing the Prime Minister’s personal decision to demonetise the currency. Only three days back Modi government virtually in an act of renunciation of...
By N. Kavitha Rameshwar The judgment of the Madras High Court on November 14 in the case of Sunitha versus Additional Chief Secretary to Government & Ors. is of increased significance for two reasons. Firstly, it acknowledges the transformation of the welfare State into a police State that has...
By Sushil Kutty Former US Vice President Mike Pence is back, armed with a memoir with which he wills to conquer the future—Pence wants to be the spotlight in 2024 even as Donald Trump announced he’s gonna give himself another chance in the glare of the White House. Asked...
By Tirthankar Mitra Time was when politics in West Bengal was studded by luminaries Kiran Shankar Roy and Hiren Mukherjee known for their erudition and courtesy towards their political opponents who were never considered to be enemies. The tradition eroded over the years as politeness took a back seat...