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.Cuban Revolution Will Be 60 Years Old On January 1
By Rob Miller On January 1 2019, the Cuban people will celebrate the 60th anniversary of their revolution. Following years of struggle Cubans finally defeated the forces of the brutal dictator Fulgencia Batista and his backers in the United States. Yet as Fidel Castro famously predicted the United...
Decoding Assam Panchayat Poll Results
By Ashis Biswas In a closely contested election it is not often that both winners and the runners-up end up celebrating the results. Curiously, that is precisely what happened in the recently concluded Assam panchayat elections. Leaders of both BJP and Congress had their reasons to cheer as...
Kamal Nath Accomplishes A Feat With Ministry Making
By L.S. Herdenia BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath has accomplished a Herculean task. Although in theory the chief minister alone has the prerogative about the formation of the ministry, the ground reality is totally different. The chief minister has to play a delicate balancing act and by...
China Suffers Two Diplomatic Setbacks In Asia
By Barun Das Gupta China has suffered two major diplomatic setbacks in Asia within the span of one month. The first was its failure to get its protégé Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. The second was the defeat of its friend Abdulla Yameen in...
Why Mamata Banerjee considering BJP as greatest threat
Even though West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee virtually has no challenge from opponents and is enjoying good majority in state assembly, she seems not certain about her political position. She is currently more concerned is the jump of BJP’s vote share in a by-election this year. In 2013...
UP Congress Leaders Opposed To Joining SP-BSP Alliance
By Pradeep Kapoor LUCKNOW: Congress leaders and workers led by UPCC president Raj Babbar are opposed to joining any alliance with SP and BSP for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Senior leaders have appraised the party high command of their feelings and asked party leaders and workers to stay...
Theatre Of The Absurd At Sabarimala
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It was theatre of the absurd at its worst at Sabarimala on Sunday, thanks to a government which seems to have no clue whatsoever on handling the volatile situation at the hill shrine when 11 women under the banner of Manithi, a progressive women’s forum,...
Bjp’s Dreams Of ‘Congress-Mukt’ Bharat Bite The Dust
By Kalyani Shankar As the year 2018 comes to close, it is pertinent to look back and see how the year that was politically. It has been especially important as it taught a few lessons to the political parties of all shades. Till a few months ago, no...
KCR Is Playing Into BJP’s Hands
By Amulya Ganguli Unless K. Chandrashekhar Rao is playing the BJP’s game, as his critics suspect, his attempts to put together a non-Congress, non-BJP alliance do not make sense. If the real objective of the Telangana chief minister is to oust the BJP, he simply cannot afford...
Bovine Janata Party Chewing Cud
By Aditya Aamir Monday morning, ‘yuvatis’ Kanaka Durga and Bindu tried their luck at breaching the Sabarimala male bastion and failed. Sunday it was Selvi Mano and her band of 10 Chennai girls. Mano – supporter and fan of ‘chapter-and-verse’ Zakir Naik – and her group were driven...
India’s Fast Ageing Population
By Nantoo Banerjee It may appear to be odd that India’s nearly 150-million 60-plus-year old population, generally politically active though not always quite vocal, is among the country’s most neglected by the society and the government. There is no worthwhile social security for the aged. A small section...
BJP, JD(U) to contest for 17 seats each in Bihar; LJP in 6
Bharatiya Janata Party and Janata Dal (United) will be contesting in seventeen seats each in Bihar while the Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan to have candidates for remaining six seats. Announcing the seat sharing on Sunday the BJP president Amit Shah said NDA will send Paswan, who...
GST Council finds revenue below projection; GoM formed to study trend
Important decisions have been taken Saturday in the 31st meeting of GST Council regarding ITC eligibility criteria, exemptions issue and rate rate rationalization. Six items were downgraded from the 28 percent tax slab while 33 items from 18 percent. Services provided to Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) account holders...
Far Right Advances In Spanish Regional Elections
By Conn Hallinan In what seems a replay of recent German and Italian elections, an openly authoritarian and racist party made major electoral gains in Spain’s most populous province, Andalusia, helping to dethrone the Socialist Party that had dominated the southern region for 36 years. Vox (Voice)—a party...
NATO-Trump Row Over Afghan Troops Withdrawal
By Sankar Ray Keeping NATO-allies blindsided, US President Donald John Trump announced withdrawal 7,000 out of 14,000 troops from Afghanistan – one of the decisions disagreeing with which Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis put in his papers. However, the chief executive office at Kabul heaved a sigh of...
Attack On Privacy: Back To Square One
By K. Raveendran Authoritarian regimes tend to think they are for ever. And they create draconian rules to drive their agendas, but without realising that they could some day be at the receiving end of their own evil when they change places, which is unavoidable in any democratic set-up....
Kamal Nath Effects Massive Bureaucratic Shake-Up
By L.S. Herdenia BHOPAL: Even before his ministry is in place chief minister Kamal Nath has taken several important decisions. Besides waiving farmers’ loans, a massive bureaucratic shake up has been effected. Out of 52 district Collectors 24 have been given marching orders and many of them are believed...
40 To Do An Alamo On Sabarimala
By Sushil Kutty Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the Mexican General who led the siege of the Alamo in the 1830s, got hit by a cannon shell on his ankle, leading to the amputation of a leg, which he ordered buried with full military honours. He seems to...
