On August 31, Dollar-Rupee and Pound- Rupee parity were 66.6 and 103.3 respectively. In between the rupee reached 68.85 against the dollar necessitating RBI intervention. Since May 22 when the US hinted at tightening liquidity, the rupee has depre
As news channels and online services flashed the news ‘Yasin Bhatkal arrested’ early Thursday (Aug 29) morning, there were murmurs of excitement in quite a few war rooms across the country, it is learnt. By afternoon, as
Okay, you are smarter than I am so you tell me. Why do the Indian police always hold hands with the suspects after arresting them? You often get this picture of five cops holding a palm and a shoulder or an arm and an elbow and then
I moved back to Delhi after a two-year stay in Mumbai in 2010. In two years, the city broke many myths for me which I had begun to believe as hard truths while growing up in Lucknow and then studying and working in Delhi. The first one was that wo
Move aside ‘Mirakkel’. You are no competition to Mamata Banerjee’s whole new range of comedy series. Gone are the days of stand-up comedians with their prepared acts. As Mamata-didi plays out her fears and insecurities as chief m
At the time of its inception in 2005, the Right to Information Act generated high hopes and was rightly called the second independence of sorts for the people. Now that this powerful weapon is aimed at the political parties, to make them accountab
While we mourn the death of our jawans in the recent Indo-Pak border incident, the question that disturbs me, having been part of the paramilitary forces, is whether we are performing our duty properly. I joined the CRPF in December
Adam Smith was a moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. He is best known for his second seminal book: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which strongly emphasizes on the role of ‘self-interest&rsqu
The Indian economy is the ninth-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). According to statistics released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 2012, on per-capita-income basis, India ranke
I come from a generation of Bengalis for whom the greatest pride in Indian cricket is a southpaw who batted with footwork that went from minimal to even zero at times, moved his body parts starting from the backside and down till the right foot at
Most people would consider getting into JNU a big achievement as JNU is undoubtedly one of the best educational institutions of our country. It’s a university known not only for its academic excellence but also for the vigour and rigour of i
All I got from my visits to two doctors at two of Noida`s leading private hospitals were impoverising bills, innumerable pills to pop and little relief from the pain I was experiencing. So, I decided to confront my fear of long queues and dreary w
In India, the minority population is merely a vote bank for most political parties. The BJP too tried to woo them. The party is projecting Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for general elections of 2014 and is likely to announce his name sho
Britons are as ill-prepared to handle summer heat as we are for blizzards. And yet they are enduring what is being termed as the century’s fiercest summer. July temperatures have peaked at 31 degrees Celsius and around 650 lives are lost.
I have never sent or received a telegram. Not in the 37-plus years that I have lived on this planet till date, nor on July 15, when the last ones went out as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), which ran it, wound up the service. I never needed t
“Yaari hai imaan mera, yaar meri zindagi…” The lines that define friendship are also the lines that are synonymous with Pran, who passed away last week in Mumbai. Declared as the ‘villain of the millennium’,
Hemant Soren, son of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief Shibu Soren, was sworn in as the new chief minister of the state today. With his appointment, another of Jharkhand’s stint with President’s rule came to an end. President&
The recently concluded Wimbledon kicked up two storms on the sexism front: BBC Radio 5 Live’s presenter John Inverdale’s comment on Marion Bartoli’s looks – or apparent lack of them – and the headlines about Andy Murr
