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.Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Pandavas’ Metaphor Might Work
By Harihar Swarup Each plenary session of the Congress has sent a message for the people. Perhaps, the most important one was when the Congress completed 100 years of its existence. The centenary plenum was held in Bombay in June, 1985 where Rajiv Gandhi, who headed the Congress...
Germany Coalition Has New Faces But Old Polices
By Victor Grossman After nearly six months of haggling, the three-party German coalition puck is in the goal box. The suspense is over. For the fourth time in a row the country will again be run by Angela Merkel. Not a few feathers have been ruffled....
Corbyn Is Best Placed To Win Next Elections
By Mike Phipps and Liz Davies Nearly three years since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader, his standing has drastically changed. His opponents in the parliamentary party are a lot quieter. The Labour Party apparatus is at last being reshaped to match the new reality. Recent polls indicate Labour...
Data Mining For Poll Started In India
By Sushil Kutty Is it possible to fix Indian elections using data from Facebook? It depends funnily enough on who wins, and which party loses! Post-2014, chances that Facebook data helped was certain; post-Bihar gatbandhan, the view was the opposite – ‘no, hardly likely’. Post-Donald Trump’s election,...
Cambridge Analytica Boss Met Trump Before 2016 Poll
By John Wojcik The steady stream of Trump administration and campaign crimes worsens by the day, with the latest Cambridge Analytica controversy exposing to the world that the Trump campaign hired a company that stole and manipulated data from up to 50 million American Facebook users in an...
Generational Change In Action
By Rahil Nora Chopra The 84th plenary session of Congress saw for the first time in the party’s 133-year old history a change in the seating arrangements. In earlier sessions the senior leaders used to sit on the dais and the workers on the floor. This time, however,...
Resentment Brewing Around PML(N) Succession
By Sankar Ray Enthronement of Maryam Nawaz, daughter of deposed Pak premier Nawaz Sharif, as his political heir apparent – as chief of Pakistan Muslim League (Navajo) – has peeled factional wrangling inside the ruling party. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has stated openly that the right to dissent...
Rahul’s Objective-Type Doklam Question A Joke
By Aditya Aamir Congress President Rahul Gandhi has an objective-type question for the people of India. It is regarding China and its desire to occupy Doklam. Reports are that China is opening up a new route to reach south Doklam and put India and Bhutan in jeopardy. The...
The Lie That Cambridge Analytica Can Sway Fb Indians
By Sushil Kutty A Facebook ‘friend’ who deactivated from the Social Media platform is back on board. Wonder why when there is a hashtag #DeleteFacebook gone viral with ordinary and extraordinary men and women taking the bus out of ‘Zuck Town’. Asked ‘Why?’ the Facebook ‘friend’ said he...
The risk of sovereign-bank feedback loop
Finance minister Arun Jaitley had recently revised the fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 to 3.5% of GDP from the original 3.2%. Photo: Pradeep Gaur/Mint As the Indian economy navigates through the consequences of the banking crisis, evident in the mounting pile of bad loans and severe governance issues...
The people’s struggle to find solutions to water challenges
India’s water issues are frightening and complex. The ‘sarkaar’ and the ‘bazaar’ deal with these in their own framework. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint India’s water challenges are intractable, messy and perennial. While citizens wait for the state to deliver on its obligations, they also scramble for their own solutions,...
Is Big Data a threat to free democratic choice?
Whether privacy concerns will compel a change in digital business models will depend in the end on the market and consumer choice. Illustration: Jayachandran/MInt The 1928 US presidential elections were a lively affair. Democratic Party nominee Alfred Smith may well have wished they were less so. Backers of...
A Great Film On The Man Who Changed The World
By Nick Wright A young Ho Chi Minh serving pastries on the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry, a pretty Rosa Luxemburg in a velvet dress, the bold young Stalin expropriating banks in the Caucasus, the earnest law student Ulyanov — what is it that is so beguiling about the early lives...
Xi Makes A Changez Khan Pitch
By Sushil Kutty The Chinese girl looked him in the eye and declared, “China Ver Beeg; China Ver Strong.” Stung by her dismissing tone, he retorted: “India Also Ver Beeg; India Also Ver Strong.” That brought a faint smile on her inscrutable face and she exchanged a knowing...
39 Returning In Boxes Dash Families’ Hopes
By Aditya Aamir Finally, it is confirmed that all 39 Indians gone missing, believed abducted by ISIS, in Mosul in Iraq were killed by ISIS and buried in a mass grave there. Told this news, opposition MPs in the Lok Sabha did not let External Affairs Minister Sushma...
Unwise To Choose Paper Ballot Over Evm
By Amulya Ganguli There were two notable features of the recent All India Congress Committee (AICC) plenary session in Delhi. One was about Sonia Gandhi demonstrating that she was a more aggressive speaker than her son, although the latter tried to make up any shortfall in this respect...
Indian Labourers In Big Distress In Foreign Lands
By Ashis Biswas Indian external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has finally drawn the curtain over the four year old story of the disappearance of the 39 Indian workers in Mosul in Iraq. She admitted in Parliament on March 20 that all of them had been killed by the...
Foreign Law Firms Prohibited From Setting Offices In India
By Amritananda Chakravorty In a judgment with wide-ranging ramifications, the Supreme Court has rejected the plea of foreign law firms to set up offices in India or practice in Indian Courts. But it allowed them to act on a fly-in and fly-out basis, for giving legal advice on...
