Opinion
Appeal
The legacy of IPA, founded by Nikhil Chakravartty, the doyen of journalism in India, to keep the flag of independent media flying high, is facing the threat of extinction due to the effect of the Covid pandemic. Only an emergency funding can avert such an eventuality. We appeal to all those who believe in the freedom of expression to contribute to this noble cause.Year Of Ecstacy And Agony For Libertarians
By K. Raveendran 2018 will go down in history as a year in which Indians experienced bouts of ecstasy as well as agony when it came to intrusion of the state into their private lives. We hardly finished celebrating the Supreme Court verdict in Aadhaar case, which upheld...
Forging Alliances To Take On Lok Sabha 2019 Won’t Be Easy
By Harihar Swarup Loss of three Hindi heart-land states—Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh—have sent shockwaves in BJP circles. In a panic reaction, the saffron party made significant concessions to its Bihar allies JD(U) and LJP in seat sharing for the general elections. Swiftly moving to counter the fall-out...
Government working out on plans for farm relief ahead of elections
Possible sops could be announced for farmers to respond agrarian crisis challenge in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a long discussion with finance minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday night to work out on farm solutions. An insider revealed the government is looking for such...
Nath Ministry Faces Crisis Over Portfolio Allocation
By L S Herdenia BHOPAL: There is no end to the difficulties being faced by Kamal Nath, the new chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. He took oath on December 17 and constituted his cabinet on December 25. But even four days after being sworn-in, all the ministers are without...
Narrowing Options Ominous For BJP Before Lok Sabha Poll
By Gyan Pathak The BJP has restarted its political machine after a brief halt. Only a fortnight ago the party had suffered a humiliating defeat in the state assembly elections of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. Party president Amit Shah has already appointed election in-charges in 17 states...
Wall Of Opposition Criticism Demolished
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A deft political move from the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) has knocked the stuffings out of the criticism levelled by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Sangh Parivar against the move to organize a women’s wall on January 1, 2019. The...
A Bank Strike Unique In Many Ways
By B. Sivaraman Some strikes stand out as unique in terms of their overall impact. Take the case of 26 December 2018 strike by a million bank employees. Disrupting nearly 30 lakh cheque clearances worth anywhere between Rs.20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh crore in the estimates of...
Minimum Basic Income, Full Medicare Should Top 2019 Agenda
By Nitya Chakraborty What should be the primary agenda of the year 2019 which is the last year of the second decade of the 21st century?.The outgoing year was marked by the farmers distress, job losses and the talk about widespread insecurity among both farmers and workers in...
Masterstroke for UP; BJP deploys former Gujarat home minister to strengthen party
Ego issues are being put aside and with this policy marching towards the 2019 Lok Sabha elections the Bharatiya Janata Party deployed Wednesday former Gujarat home minister Gordhan Zadaphia to Uttar Pradesh, having a total of eighty constituencies, to contribute to strengthening the party in the state. Other popular...
Only Democracies Have Holy Cows
By Aditya Aamir If India was an Islamic Republic triple-talaq would have gone without a trace and nobody, including AsauddinOwaisi, would have shouted, outshouted the voice of God because “what is wrong in theology cannot be right in law, Sharia”. But India happens to be a multi-religious democracy, with...
Nitish in a bind to find suitable candidates
By Arun Srivastava BJP president Amit Shah acceding to the demand of JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar to let him contest 17 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections has not come as surprise. Even before the seat sharing process began, it was known that BJP would not engage Nitish...
Year of living dangerously in Karachi
By Matein Khalid DUBAI: The current balance of payments crisis in Pakistan evoked my memories of visiting Argentina as a Chase Manhattan derivatives banker in the 1990s. Domingo Cavallo’s artificial peso peg against the US dollar led to a currency collapse, banking failures and political chaos (five Presidents in...
The slumgullion to sway voters
Sushil Kutty Ayodhya, Sabarimala, Gurugram, Akbar Fort, Noida, lunatic asylum, pilgrimage centre, women’s right to pray, Muslims’ right to pray… Since May 26, 2014, ever since BJP won the rulers’ grubstake, religious issues have acquired a political colour, which has gotten a deeper shade with general elections 2019 approaching....
Year Of Living Dangerously In Karachi
By Matein Khalid DUBAI: The current balance of payments crisis in Pakistan evoked my memories of visiting Argentina as a Chase Manhattan derivatives banker in the 1990s. Domingo Cavallo’s artificial peso peg against the US dollar led to a currency collapse, banking failures and political chaos (five Presidents in...
The Slumgullion To Sway Voters
By Sushil Kutty Ayodhya, Sabarimala, Gurugram, Akbar Fort, Noida, lunatic asylum, pilgrimage centre, women’s right to pray, Muslims’ right to pray… Since May 26, 2014, ever since BJP won the rulers’ grubstake, religious issues have acquired a political colour, which has gotten a deeper shade with general elections...
2019 elections featuring dictative nature with phrase “fir ek bar, Modi Sarkar”
Are the 2019 Lok Sabha and six Assembly elections having dictative feature? The 2014 polls witnessed worst ever performance of Congress followed by BJPs subsequent wins in Assembly elections. The mandate was decisive and in favor of Narendra Modi. However, it is to understand the 2014 was a see-saw...
‘Fighting Situation’ To Unseat Modi
By Aditya Aamir A C-Voter-Republic TV ‘National Survey’, released a couple of days ago, gives the Mahagathbandhan 50 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh, if ‘elections are held today.’ There is a caveat: There should be a MGB. Well, MGB did not come gift-wrapped this Xmas, and is...
One-GST goal masterstroke for BJP in election campaigns?
Taxpayers will surely be happy with the latest announcement of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley about the government is currently working on a single GST rate for most of the goods. It makes sense as India is having one of the most complex GST structures in the world and simplifying...
