Election results in India often conceal more than they reveal. Such is the nature of the first-past-the-post system that results are open to many inferences that one may draw, depending on one’s political understanding. The results of the as
It has been raining continually for the last 48 hours; almost the same duration has elapsed since we had the last flicker of electricity and water. My laptop is completely drained of power. The BSNL network for over a week has been a rarest of the
The minister for human resource development, Smriti Irani, along with her mandarins and the vice-chancellors of all central universities was in a two-day retreat in September in Chandigarh. It is not surprising that the electronic media neither re
Naveen Patnaik has proved some of the epithets to describe him – reluctant inheritor, slap happy elite, nebbish scion, political greenhorn – grossly erroneous. In a historic first for Odisha, he won the fourth consecutive term as chief
A small (by Indian standard) news caught my attention yesterday while surfing Google News. David Cameron `shoved` in Leeds: I was just a jogger, says Dean Farley, as police launch security review, said the
After the submission of the list of black money account holders to the supreme court (SC), head of the special investigation team (SIT), justice MB Shah said there is no new detail in the report. According to a news report on IBNLiv
About 1 lakh schools have been closed down across the country since the enactment of the Right to Education (RTE) Act in April 2010, according to data compiled by a civil society organisation tracking the big-ticket legislation carried out by the
The government has cancelled the selection procedure followed till now in appointing CMDs and EDs at public sector banks. In a statement issued on October 27, the finance ministry said it would fill up the vacancies ‘expediti
The supreme court on Tuesday pulled up the centre and Delhi lieutenant governor (LG) Najeeb Jung for keeping the government formation in Delhi in a limbo even after eight months of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind kejriwal stepping down as the
It is rare for an American daily to heap praise on Cuba and rarer still for a US secretary of state to acknowledge the contribution made by the socialist Cuba. But this is exactly what has happened. Fifty five years after the Cuban rev
Responding to prime minister Narendra Modi’s call to contribute to the realisation of Mahatma Gandhi’s dream of a Swachchh Bharat, or clean India, the corporate world has committed large sums to build toilets for girls in schools and w
She was struggling hard for life. On the verge of death, she was being supported by the rescue team whose members kept rubbing her limbs intermittently to warm her up. Doses of steroids were proving ineffective. This abandoned female monkey suffer
Post-2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which has been a driving force behind the development policy for many national and international agencies, will soon be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Over the
The government publishes many figures. I have selected and processed the most relevant of them to give a picture of how the economy is doing – or rather, was doing till the second quarter of 2014. Sometimes, different governm
In times when it is fashionable in the development sector to say “I am a shit man”, Marachi Subburaman cuts a strikingly underwhelming figure. He certainly does not look like the kind of man who has helped build more than 20,000 toilet
The UPA-2 government had offered the special category status to Seemandhra as part of the decision to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh between Telangana and Seemandhra (post-bifurcation Andhra Pradesh). The new, Narendra Modi-led government hinted early o
On September 28, speaking at the Madison Square Garden in the US, prime minister Narendra Modi said banks across the country have garnered `1,500 crore in deposits in more than four crore accounts opened under the pradhan mantri jan dha
Now that top-rung companies will be making big spending on corporate social responsibility (CSR), how do we ensure that the funds are spent effectively, and make an impact? One tool to do so would be social audit. Nirmala Sitharaman, minister of s
Of all the good and the bad things that Bhupinder Singh Hooda would be remembered for during his two consecutive terms since 2005 as chief minister, one of the most significant was the wiping off of the ‘Aaya Lal, Gaya Lal’ phase of Ha
Close to eight months have passed since Archana Bhargava, chairman and managing director (CMD) of the crisis-ridden United Bank of India (UBI) took voluntary retirement, but the bank is yet to get her successor. This is not an isolated case. Five
