The supreme court has held the practice of triple talaq as unconstitutional. This takes us back to the Shah Bano case and the question of reforming the Muslim personal law. Had it not been overturned by Rajiv Gandhi in 1986, how would it have impacted the Muslim society? The year 1986 played a very important role as the issue of triple talaq became
Central Electronics Limited (CEL) was established in 1974 – when the world of electronics was a rarefied field. This public sector enterprise made continuos losses for many years, but for the past four years it has been making profits. Its CMD, Dr Nalin Shinghal, speaks with Praggya Guptaa about this transformation and future plans. How
Dr Kenneth E Thorpe, a professor of health policy and management at Emory University in the US and also the chairman of Partnership to Fight Chronic Diseases (PFCD), says that the government alone cannot do everything. “They don’t have the resources and capacity. So we have to find ways to engage private sector,” Dr Thorpe told Governance Now during his visit to India wher
It has been a year since you took charge of the new ministry. What is your biggest worry as in charge of education in India? My first priority – and that reflects my worry as well – is to improve the quality of government schools. It’s a tough job. Unfortunately, government schools which were much better earlier have deteriorated in two decades. That h
India and China are not prepared for a war over Doklam plateau in Bhutan, assessed JNU professor Srikanth Kondapalli, a well-known China expert who is back from Beijing and Shanghai after spending two months there. In a telephonic interview with Shankar Kumar, Kondapalli said both countries will not opt for war as it will be catastrophic and millions would die.
Last year the nation marked the 25th anniversary of the launch of economic liberalisation. Back in those tumultuous days, Yashwant Sinha was an important part of the dramatis personae involved in the reforms process. As finance minister in the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government, he steered the economy during a critical phase, and later, as finance minister in the NDA government, he gave
At 70, Dr Aziz Ahmad, a well-known homeopath and politician now with Congress, still has a busy practice in Abu Bazaar, in old Gorakhpur. During working hours, the lane in which he has a clinic becomes jam-packed with patients and their vehicles. People speak of naming the lane after him. Dr Ahmad takes a dim view of Yogi Adityanath. His wife Talat Aziz was allegedly shot
How do you see the rise of the Bhim Army in Uttar Pradesh? During the last assembly elections in UP, it was a common consensus among many [dalit leaders] that we’d give one more chance to Mayawati. If she comes back, well and good. If she doesn’t, let’s give somebody else a chance. As it turned out, she could not make a comeback. P
Vinay Shankar Tiwari, one among handful of Brahmin MLAs from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the only non-BJP MLA in the nine constituencies of Gorakhpur, shared with Governance Now his idea of an ideal city and also spoke on the Yogi Adityanath government completing 100 days. What do you have to say about &lsquo
Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya speaks to Governance now on how the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh has fared so far: You have come up with a report card of your 100 days in office after a humungous victory in Uttar Pradesh. Please share with us some of your experiences and achievement. I can
What is the biggest crisis India’s health care sector is going through? It is a loaded question. As you have seen in my book [‘Do We Care: India’s Health System’ Oxford University Press, 2017], whichever party that has been in power at the federal or at the states level has not given due attention to health. The doable thing within the cons
What is the role of CVC in curbing corruption and black money? Unlike many things in life, corruption is not episodic. It is not possible to talk of a completely corruption-free society. Corruption is an aspect of human nature which needs to be controlled and tackled. In India, corruption stems from various sources like systemic corruption – certain departments&
How can we ensure that children taken away from labour will have a better future? By making education a fundamental right. After enacting the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act), it is a state obligation to do all that is necessary to get a child to school. Indeed, the amendment to the Child Labour Act, 2016 complemented the RTE Act in
The seventh round of the Syria peace talks will begin on July 10 in Geneva which will be convened by the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. Violence and persecution in places like Syria and South Sudan have displaced a record 65.6 million people worldwide who are either refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced, the UN refugee agency said in June. In the meanwhile, t
Ramin Jahanbegloo is a renowned philosopher who is now associated with the Jindal Global University. His latest work, The Decline of Civilization, calls for countering the ‘decivilising’ tendencies of our times by returning to Gandhi and Tagore. Jahanbegloo answered some questions on this subject in an email interview with Yoshika Sangal.
What ails engineering education in India? Fifteen or 20 years back, a large number of industrialists and businessmen started engineering colleges, looking at them as a business opportunity. A large number of engineering colleges came up in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and also in Tamil Nadu. However, when the IITs – which pay teachers well and have a
We have recently seen farmers from Tamil Nadu protesting in the national capital. Then Maharashtra farmers protested, deciding not to send their produce to cities. The agitation has now reached Madhya Pradesh, leading to killings. Why there is sudden farmers’ unrest in the country? I think we tend to miss the real point behind these episodes of farmers unr
RS Praveen Kumar, a 1995 batch IPS officer, is also the secretary of Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) – a state-owned educational institution which runs residential schools for scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and underprivileged children. In a telephonic conversation with Shivani Chaturvedi, Kumar talks about how quality
Giving highest priority to education, the AAP government in Delhi is working towards bringing government schools at par with private schools. Atishi Marlena, advisor to deputy chief minister and education minister Manish Sisodia, talks to Jasleen Kaur about the challenges that government schools are facing. What ails the e
Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, a head and neck cancer surgeon at the Tata Memorial hospital in Mumbai, is a leading anti-tobacco activist. He joined hands with Sumitra Hooda Pednekar and others to file a PIL in the Bombay High Court earlier this year, questioning the state-run insurance firm LIC’s investments in a leading cigarette-maker.
