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.Delhi High Court To Hear Plea Against Aadhaar Over Data Leak
Following a petition filed by a law professor against Aadhaar the Delhi High Court has agreed to hear a plea and the next hearing is scheduled to be on November 19. Meanwhile, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), body behind the digital ID providing to more than a...
Why Indians Must Introspect Secular Twisters
Sushil Kutty Studies and reports supported with empirical and other data can be interpreted in whichever way ideologues want. Give the interpretations a meaning and slant that mirrors theirs. Data-driven IndiaSpend, in the opposite ideological camp to that of the party currently ruling at the Centre, has put...
Pullout From China’s Regional Partnership A Bad Move
By Subrata Majumder Amidst a media buzz about India withdrawing from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), eyebrows are raised over the timing of the withdrawal and its impact on the country. It is an irony that while RCEP – the largest trade block comprising 16 nations –...
Supreme Court Verdict On Confession Of Accused Is Controversial
By Amritananda Chakravorty In a surprising judgment with wide ramifications, the Supreme Court, in a two judge bench decision, has overturned its longstanding jurisprudence on the issue of inadmissibility of confession of accused in the police custody. In a recent case of criminal appeal, the Supreme Court...
Rain-Battered Kerala Picking Up The Pieces
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The worst, hopefully, is over. Rain-ravaged Kerala is getting its breath back. Petrified people are picking up the pieces of their lives shattered by the deluge of death and destruction. With the raging waters receding and rain easing, the focus has shifted to...
Vajpayee Leaves Behind Challenge Of Good Governance
By S Sethuraman Whatever successes the Modi Government claims for its first four years, here and there, its major failures start with its brand of “Maximum Governance and Minimum Government”, which primarily did not ensure the “achhe din” promised in 2014. Nor, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi Government...
Simultaneous Polls May Not Be A Reality By 2019
By Kalyani Shankar With the BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi advocating ardently ‘One Nation, One Poll,’ there are questions in the political circles whether it is possible or feasible before the next Lok Sabha polls, and if not, why are they talking about it. Senior BJP...
Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments
NRC Co-ordinator to submit district wise data of exclusions – Continuing its supervision of the NRC process, the Supreme Court has directed the Assam State Co-ordinator for the NRC to submit a district wise data of the persons excluded from the list, in a sealed cover. While the Union...
When Floods Divide Jana Gana
By Aditya Aamir The ‘North India-South India’ binary has started bothering a big bunch of people. You cannot blame them. The Centre’s stingy response to the flood-fury in Kerala is partly responsible. Rs 100 crore and then Rs 500 crore. Misers rule India. Is it because the Bharatiya...
Bangladesh Weighing Impact Of Assam NRC
By Barun Das Gupta The publication of the National Register of Citizens in Assam has caused concern in Bangladesh for obvious reasons. Names of some 40 lakh people did not find place in the NRC and concerns were naturally raised about their future status as citizens. Although...
India’s GDP Is High On Selling, Low On Manufacturing
By Nantoo Banerjee The government is believed to be ready to shortly wheel a new industrial policy. Such an idea is pending with the authorities for quite some time. The latest reform initiative by the government is being pitched as potentially the biggest overhaul of industrial policy in...
Mamata Govt Adopts Brazen Anti-Worker Stand
By B. Sivaraman The three-day strike by the tea workers of West Bengal on 7–9 August 2018 posed several questions: What exactly was the strike by 29 unions intended to achieve and what exactly did it achieve? Rejecting the West Bengal Labour Secretary’s shocking offer of a...
Malayali Greed Has Come Home To Roost
By K. Raveendran Nothing should take precedence over relief and rescue operations in the unprecedented devastation brought by overflowing dams and torrential rains in Kerala, claiming over 300 lives and displacing over 2 lakh people from their homes. Over 1,500 relief camps have been opened. It was as though...
Modi Government Failed To Breathe Life Into MSMEs
By Gyan Pathak Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in India have been suffering for the last four years due to the insensitivity of the Modi government. How much of it was intentional in favour of big corporate sector, and how much of it was the result of...
National Tv media finally smell ‘petrichor’
Aditya Aamir It took a pyre lit to look at a province drowning. Atal Behari Vajpayee couldn’t have died at a more wrong time. National television news media couldn’t take eyes off the ex-PM. His poetry became the anthem, the lament of the dirge from God’s Own Country...
Election Commission Should Not Allow Simultaneous Polls
By Harihar Swarup Election Commission has rightly scotched idle speculation in recent days on the possibility of clubbing Lok Sabha elections with 11 assembly polls. Drastic solutions like imposing President’s Rule in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Mizoram were mooted so that polls here could be delayed and...
Uncertain Times For Germany’s Politics
By John Wojcik During my two-week vacation in Germany last month it was clear to me that Germany, like the U.S., is at a crossroad. Dangerous developments connected with a rising fascist movement under the banner of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) are underway. Germany’s Left Party (die...
Swachh Bharat A Skewed Mission
By Arun Srivastava Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has neither been a ‘Jan Andolan’ nor a mission. It is indeed doubtful whether it was the best tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019. The manner in which the so called mission was launched at Rajpath in New...
