“Out of the total taxes collected in the country, 65% is collected as indirect taxes and only 35% are direct taxes. This ratio is completely opposite to the taxation in developed world . We need to fix this ratio and try to make it at
Sanjiv Chaturvedi, the IFS officer who is perennially in news courting controversies with his fight against corruption, has some reason to smile: the Uttarakhand government has given him an ‘outstanding’ rating in his performance evalu
It’s 11 in the morning and the road leading to sector 17 in Chandigarh towards the Home Guards building is quiet, almost deserted. But as one enters the building, it is bustling with people. A big board in red and blue with ‘Women Poli
Uttarakhand’s picturesque hill stations are facing an acute water crisis this summer, a time when hordes of tourists put a huge strain on the available infrastructure. Hoteliers are forced to purchase water s
Ram Nath Kovind, the presidential candidate of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), said in 2005 that his party is determined to help dalits and shed the image that it is only an "upper caste party". &nbs
More than a century ago, a team of officials from Brazil toured some villages of Kheda district, in central Gujarat. They had come to procure breeding bulls of the famous Kankreji breed, notes Bhailal Patel, a charismatic institution-builder who w
Readers will recollect the dastardly attack on CRPF personnel that occurred in Chhattisgarh on April 24, 2017. Left-wing extremist (LWE) groups attacked a team of 90 CRPF personnel who were sanitising a stretch of the public road being construct
Ram Nath Kovind, Narendra Modi, NDA, President “Ram Nath who?” That was the reaction from some newsmakers, when Ram Nath Kovind’s name was announced for the post of Bihar governor in 2015. The sam
Acclaimed Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who had to leave her home after Islamic hardliners issued her a death warrant and the government expelled her for her controversial book ‘Lajja’ 23 years ago, has been granted a one-year
When India’s longest bridge, the 9.15-km Dhola-Sadiya over the Brahmaputra river, connecting Assam to Arunachal Pradesh, was inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi on May 26, China reacted angrily. As quoted by a news agency, China&rsqu
The water resources ministry is working on a national river Ganga bill to protect the river from pollution and degeneration. Addressing the media on Monday, union minister for water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation Uma Bharti sa
Sarvodaya Co-Ed Senior Secondary School, Sultanpuri, emerged as one of the best performers among Delhi’s government schools in CBSE’s plus-two examinations. The school’s passing percentage shot up to 84.72 percent from last
About 15 lakh engineers pass out every year; but there are jobs only for about a third of them. Most passouts have degrees in information technology and electronics, because the IT sector was booming over the last two decades. Now, the National As
Abhishek Bhagat, of Mumbai, had finished his degree course in electrical engineering from a college listed in the top 20 private colleges of Maharashtra, and he sincerely believed the popular opinion that his college was the best in Mumbai for stu
I am reminded of what my teacher had told me in school: “When a society wishes to blatantly show how unjust it can be, it will crucify the best.” On June 13 when I heard about the conviction of four of the nation’s transparency c
The Magna Carta, written on this day of June 15 over 800 years back in iron gall ink on parchment in medieval Latin, can be described as the cornerstone of individual liberty in India. It was relevant then and continues to be relevant today.
Nearly 1 out of 2 elderly people have been mistreated in India, said a report. HelpAge India’s latest report ‘How India treats its Elderly’ is a national survey of how elders are treated in the public space. It co
It was a sultry afternoon but the proximity of the river made it almost pleasant. The festive atmosphere – crowds, shamiana, devotional music – completed the scene. “It is such a big event for us. There is nothing more pi
Growing up in a village in Haryana’s Bhiwani district, Ravinder Kumar had often witnessed the lackadaisical attitude of government officials. An ambitious teenager, he believed that there were better and efficient ways of doing things. With
His colleagues in the bureaucracy say he’s clean. His 37 years as an IAS officer were spotless. His services batchmate SY Quraishi, a former chief election commissioner, goes so far as to say: “He’s a sadhu. He has not done anyth
