Rohingya Muslims Mohammed Yusuf and Noor Bano along with their newborn daughter Noor Fatimah fled to India from Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2012. Through Bangladesh, they arrived in Kolkata from where they boarded a train that brought t
With cross-voting taking place in at least two states, parliamentarians as well as legislators across the country cast their ballot in the presidential election that has NDA nominee and former Bihar governor Ram Nath Kovind pitted against UPA ca
It’s a Saturday morning at the Gorakhnath temple, and there’s a hustle-bustle in the compound: the chief minister’s in absentia durbar is on. Callers phone in their complaints, and letters are issued that, hopefully, will solve t
UN recently adopted the first-ever treaty to ban nuclear weapons. The ten-page treat is encompassing in its prescriptions: it prohibits a full range of nuclear-weapon-related activities, such as undertaking to develop, test, produce, manufacture
Lateral entry into the civil service is again being considered to meet the shortage of officers in the middle management level. This is a U-turn from last year, when the government had ruled it out. Instructions ha
“Any intended reforms will be meaningful only if they are understood in proper perspective which all stakeholders have to value,” said RBI deputy governor SS Mundra while delivering his keynote address at the Governance Now, India Ba
The armed forces, a professional and highly trained group that compares to the best in the world, is a symbol of the spirit of this country whose soil has been enriched by the saga of bravery. Yet, it is an irony that the military
“The support of political parties to reforms depends on which side they sit in the parliament,” said former finance minister Yashwant Sinha while referring to the 1991 economic reforms and other major financial decisions.
After massive participation in the #NotInMyName campaign initiated by filmmaker Saba Dewan – a peaceful protest against rising communal hatred in the country, another campaign along similar lines is being launched by social activist Shabna
A key element of electoral reforms is to bar convicted MPs and MLAs from contesting elections for their entire lifetime. Yet, this has not happened till now. The election commission drew the supreme court`s ire due
“Voting has been completed. The machine is locked,” announced the secretary conducting the voting process for the adoption of a UN treaty at the United Nations headquarters in New York. As the screen displayed the results – 122 i
Dengue cases in Mumbai have increased by a whopping 265% from 2013-2017, said a report which added that almost 18 people have died every day from tuberculosis (TB) in 2016-17. According to Praja Foundations White Paper on The
Former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, who is Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, doesn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade. He once said that fear rules India and at another time pointed out that our democracy is deeply flawed. The
Sanjeev Kapoor’s first rendezvous with food business was at the Asian Games held in Delhi in 1982, where he was given the duty of serving pineapple juice. Kapoor was then a student of the Pusa Institute of Hotel Management, which was cat
The discovery that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was living comfortably with his family in Pakistan while Americans were hunting for him all over the world, was the turning point in the Washington-Islamabad relations, said S Paul Kapur, au
Fragmented and dysfunctional. K Sujatha Rao has no reluctance in referring to these two words when describing the Indian healthcare scenario in her magisterial overview, “Do We Care? India’s Health System”. She knows what she&rsq
The fatal shooting of seven pilgrims from Gujarat during a terror attack on the Amarnath Yatra will be a crucial moment in militancy-ravaged Kashmir. The attack on a group of pilgrims, that too from Gujarat, the home state of prime
There is a huge difference between chalk and cheese. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, it appears, has not developed acumen to decipher it. He is not a quick learner. But, when a major stand-off between India soldiers and Chinese PLA is
The vacuum created by US president Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement is a golden opportunity for India to stand up and demonstrate its leadership on climate change, said former union environment and f
With the Islamic State (IS) losing Mosul to the Iraqi forces, a massive reconstruction effort is required to rebuild this ancient city. According to estimates, $100 billion is required to make the city livable for all its inhabitants. Most h
