By Paras Nath Singh The Supreme Court’s decision constituting a committee headed by former Supreme Court judge Justice R.V. Raveendran to examine whether Israeli software Pegasus was used to target citizens is indeed significant for it, inter alia recognizes that the right to privacy and freedom of speech are...
By Nantoo Banerjee It is a pity that the rampant drug abuse in India, one of the world’s top ten markets in narcotics smuggling and consumption, rarely hits the headline and gets debated nationally except when rich and popular Bollywood cine stars, their kins and associates are caught by...
By Matein Khalid India was the jewel in the crown for the British Empire and the jewel in my emerging market portfolio in a year when the Sensex alone is up a stellar 27%. Yet my passage to India is guided by two of my best friends in life,...
By James M Dorsey Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism is having a field day. Barely three months after the Taliban claimed victory in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the second most populous Muslim-majority state, is moving to join Kabul in becoming an outpost of religious intolerance and Muslim supremacy. In doing so, Pakistan, alongside...
By Gyan Pathak Political parties in Utter Pradesh are trying to position themselves in the most advantageous way they can imagine. Except the Congress, all three major parties – the BJP, the SP, and the BSP – are working on their old agenda of communalism and casteism. Congress has...
By Sushil Kutty Nawab Malik is a household name. The NCP minister in Uddhav Thackeray’s cabinet is a tireless pursuer of criminals and those who convert religions to consummate marriages with “mashukas”; who allegedly use caste labels to con jobs in the Indian Revenue Service. Nawab Malik’s own son-in-law...
By Nitya Chakraborty Barun Dasgupta, a leading journalist of the country, who worked in many national dailies including The Hindu and The Indian Express, died in Kolkata of old-age ailments on October 31. He was 86. Barunda, as all the younger reporters called him affectionately, worked for the India...
By Ajay Kumar “To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice” is a commitment that comes from the Magna Carta in England, and today is reflected in various constitutional provisions guaranteeing access to free, fair and independent courts. However, whether the courts...
By Satyaki Chakraborty Nicaragua, a small nation of Latin America is going for the Presidential polls on November 7 this year amidst threats of more sanctions by the United States and the protests by the opposition parties and the civil society activists against the curbs imposed by the Daniel...
By Harihar Swarup After a long time, the Congress party is setting the political agenda instead of reacting to moves made by the BJP. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has promised that 40 per cent of the Congress tickets will be given to women in Uttar Pradesh. And Congress will ensure...
By K Raveendran Interesting trends are emerging in the performance of gold as an asset class as India is recovering from the impact of Covid pandemic. Although some of the basic fault lines continue to nag, there is a perceptible pick-up in demand, such as the bellwether automobile industry,...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak The global labour market recovery has been stalled and significant disparities between advanced and developing economies persists along with great disparities between the various groups of workforce within nations are at alarming level that need urgent redressal to avoid catastrophic impacts on workforce including complete...
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dark clouds are gathering over the Kerala Government’s SilverLine high-speed rail project. The prestigious project, which, when implemented, would reduce the running time between Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram from 11 hours to less than four hours, has run into several hurdles, raising doubts about its realization...
By W. T. Whitney Jr. The 1973 U.S.-supported military coup against Chile’s socialist government and the murder of President Salvador Allende may be old history. The Pinochet dictatorship ended in 1988 and democratic forms—elections, political parties, debate—are in place. And Chile’s economy, recovering from the pandemic, is booming. For...
By Yashashwini Santuka In the last one week, post the India-Pakistan Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup match which was won by the Pakistan team, a range of alarming developments followed. The most imminent among them was the observation of hate and anger against those celebrating the Pakistan men’s cricket...
By Anjan Roy Come 2022, India can anticipate serious incursions and incidents on the Indo-China border along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The Chinese have just unilaterally passed a new law empowering the Chinese state to undertake a wide variety of activities along its land borders which in...
By Sushil Kutty Sometimes the Supreme Court says something of great import and then leaves it behind like it was a no account fleeting thought. Take the archaic sedition law. Earlier this year, the apex court said it was time for India “to define the limits of the sedition...
By Prabhat Patnaik Education in post-independence India was supposed not just to provide knowledge and skills to students, but also to facilitate the process of “nation-building” (to use a clumsy word). Since the concept of an “Indian nation”, although it existed in a rudimentary form earlier (going back even...