The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has indicted the Gujarat government and state Public Sector Undertakings for extending "undue" benefits to major industrial houses causing a loss of Rs 750 crore to the state exchequer.
Christophe Jaffrelot’s scholarly work on the rise of Hindu nationalism deals extensively with the role Kushabhau Thakre played in building up the organization from scratch, for the BJP as well as its predecessor, Bhartiya Jana
If there is something sneakily similar between India’s home minister Sushilkumar Shinde and press council chairman (and a former supreme court judge) Markandey Katju, it has got to do with the coordination of their feet with their respective
President Pranab Mukherjee has given his assent to the anti-rape bill which provides for life term and even death sentence for rape convicts besides stringent punishment for offences like acid attacks, stalking and voyeurism. Mukherjee acc
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Wednesday remained firm on his views that the experiment of "two power centres" has not worked well, notwithstanding the party rejecting his stand saying this is an "ideal model" not
India’s telecom sector was a ‘showcase’ for the success of economic reforms. When the government opened up the sector in 1994-95 to the private sector, there were many sceptics about the private sector being put in control of com
On a balmy late-March morning, tens of people stood in a line outside a ration shop in Benachapra village, under Bakibandh number 4 gram panchayat in Salboni block of West Medinipur, to collect their quota of weekly ration. It could have been a ni
Prime minister Manmohan Singh interacts with top business leaders at the opening of Confederation of Indian Industry`s annual general meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. Terming the 5 per cent GDP expansion as clearly disappointing, Manmoha
It is late March and Salboni is extremely hot with temperature close to 40 degrees. In the scorching afternoon sun, I made my way to Sayedpur to bid farewell to Rozina Khatun. As expected, Rozina was not at home. I gathered she was at school. Her
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), which is responsible for monitoring of the right to education (RTE) Act, has analysed data of 320 districts across the country to see where states stand after three years’ of th
When Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal chief minister and chief opposition leader rolled into one, launched her panchayat election campaign nearly four months ago, she chose Hutmora in Purulia, one of the hottest and most backward districts of the
State-owned NTPC’s first solar power plant commenced operations at its Dadri unit on Saturday. The five MW solar plant is estimated to generate 7.26 million units of power annually. The plant built-up at a cost of Rs 48.59 crore and
The resignation of Forest Minister K B Ganesh Kumar following allegations of domestic violence had its echo in the Kerala Assembly on Tuesday where opposition LDF demanded that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy should step down on moral grounds.
It is obvious that the folks at $57-billion Swiss pharma major Novartis are angry. Being denied a patent despite Glivec being a life-saving, breakthrough drug for certain forms of cancer like chronic myeloid leukaemia, in nearly 40 countries, albe
Maharashtra is facing one of the worst droughts this year. Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar as well as chief minister Prithviraj Chavan have said that this year’s drought is worse than the one in 1972, which was termed as a ‘fam
Differences between rural development minister Jairam Ramesh and finance minister P Chidambaram are far from over. In the latest, after Chidambaram got all-round praise for his innovative thinking in announcing a women’s bank in his budget,
While BJP’s opposition to make the national investigating agency’s (NIA) director-general SC Sinha a member of the national human rights commission (NHRC) post retirement is well known, it now emerges that senior opposition leaders Aru
Swiss pharma major Novartis AG Monday lost a seven-year long legal battle for getting its blood cancer drug Glivec patented in India and to restrain Indian companies from manufacturing generic drugs, with the Supreme Court rejecting the multinatio
When Ram Kishan nonchalantly shows his deeply calloused hands his empty eyes reveal nothing. There is no longing there. No anger. No hate. No sadness. No hope. There is not even a fleeting glimpse of a moist flicker. There are just two haunting, b
Unrecognised private schools in the national capital seem to have finally caught a break from the stringent norms on space that are a part of enforcing the right to education (RTE). Recognition from any municipal, state or central educatio
