Imagine this: you have booked a flat in a housing project coming up on plot number 4 of Sector 93A, Noida – a plush locality in this uber-developed city bordering the national capital. You have put into it a large part of your savings and ap
The tragic incident of 24 engineering students getting drowned due to negligent dam operations at the Larji hydropower project has sounded an alarm on dam safety and maintenance. In April, in a similar incident of sudden discharge of water from Te
The situation is slightly improving now but till recently the newsrooms of English newspapers in Ahmedabad would have maybe one or two Gujaratis. Those in charge of recruiting would apologetically say that when it comes to the English language, Gu
A week before Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister on May 26, the first floor of the Gujarat Bhavan turned into a makeshift prime minister`s office (PMO). Modi called a retired IAS officer of UP cadre, Nripendra Mishra, and asked him if he co
As India goes into a tizzy with the arrival of achchhe din, the lexicon of the Big is asserting itself with renewed vigour. ‘Good times’, an obvious metaphor for relentless expansion, seems to have obsessively consumed the masses. Whet
The life of the democratic state is built upon the party system,” Harold J Laski said in his classic text, A Grammar of Politics. Political parties, despite being non-governmental entities, are the means through which a modern, democratic na
Union minister for home Rajnath Singh has today said that steps would be taken to make the national population register (NPR) project to its logical conclusion. The minister reviewed the project and directed that proposals to populate the register
The Modi government is going to use information technology to not only clear the logjam of industrial projects but also to bring in transparency in the process. “We are working to digitise the process. A software programme has
It’s been a year since over 5,000 people went missing and more than 540 bodies recovered were buried in the aftermath of the Uttarakhand flashfloods. But the deprived families have still not received the promised compensation from the state
The idea of setting up a unified financial sector regulatory body by a high level committee may not find a keen supporter in Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan who has called it “somewhat schizophrenic”. In addition, he has
Prime minister Narendra Modi has had a great run for nearly a month. With inflation admiringly low when he took over, the stock market going through a heady run and the rupee playing stronger by the day against the dollar, Modi’s promised &l
It’s easy to simplify the implications of an extortion call in exclusively human terms as chilling and threatening. Security agencies, however, are increasingly realising that an extortion call is lot more complicated involving masking techn
An early morning call from the cops could make you a tad anxious. No? Worse, if it’s on a Sunday, when you’re hitting the snooze button of your mobile phone — a countless times. Moreover, if the past two weekends h
There is an increase in abuse being experienced by half of the elderly population in India. According to a report published by HelpAge India on Elder Abuse in India (2014), 50% of elders surveyed were abused during this year, compared to last year
In 2009 the government came up with the idea to link records related to travel, immigration, bank and financial transactions, among others, to provide intelligence agencies real-time information about a terror suspect. Explaining the logic of Natg
If London and New York are the benchmark, where do Indian cities stand? Janaagraha, a non-profit organisation, tries to answer that. We cull out a few points from its evaluation of 21 cities from the annual survey of India’s city systems (AS
I don’t know about you but I do not have the moral courage to click to ‘play’ to watch two minor girls swinging from a branch of a tree after being raped. But if Mr Modi’s government was to call me and ask me to shoot the t
When prime minister Narendra Modi ribbed the bureaucracy’s penchant for moving at a snail’s pace at a recent book release function, all the faces in the auditorium were creased with a knowing smile. Though the message was delivered in
The maiden session of the Telangana assembly began on June 9. After a prolonged struggle for statehood, it was supposed to be an occasion to remember for the people of Hyderabad – as elsewhere in the country’s newest state. But a tragi
If good governance is anecdotally defined as BSP — bijli, sadak, pani, the capital falls short on two counts every summer. But as the mercury soared to a record-breaking 47.8 degree Celsius this year, Delhi has suffered long power outages fo
