On June 27, 2005, prime minister Manmohan Singh made a seemingly run-of-the-mill observation while addressing the chief ministers at the national development council (NDC) meeting. He said: “If the benefits of growth have to reach all sectio
A 1998 batch officer of West Bengal Civil Service executive, Pranab Ghosh has been the district planning officer (DPLO) of West Medinipur for the last two and half years. Before that, he was the executive magistrate under the personnel and adminis
J Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee are as different as political leaders as appam is from shorshe-ilish (hilsa cooked in mustard). But at heart, the two could well be conjoined twins. Both strong women with an appetite for a fight, both are known
In signs of a thaw, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday said he would welcome any offer of an alliance between his party and the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) in the interests of the Marathi people. Howev
Days into his new job as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) national president, Rajnath Singh has his hands full, trying to quell the discomfiture in NDA partner JD(U) following senior party leader Yashwant Sinha’s endorsement of Naren
Some leaders are good speakers, some are bad speakers, and a few are good at messing it up every time they are handed the microphone. There’s a difference between the last two; a difference as yawning as the one between, say, Manmohan Singh
“I sometimes become the inadvertent object of political leaders who choose to make me a symbol of all that they think is wrong and unpatriotic about Muslims in India…. There have been occasions when I have been accused of bearing
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea to shift the trial in Delhi gangrape-cum-murder case to a place outside the national capital. A bench headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir rejected a transfer petition which was claimed to hav
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Tuesday waded into the controversy over Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s remarks about the problems purportedly faced by Indian Muslims, saying the Indian government should provide the actor
Shedding its 9-month long hawkish monetary policy stance, the Reserve Bank on Tuesday slashed its key interest rates by 0.25 per cent and released Rs 18,000 crore additional liquidity into the system to perk up growth through reduced cost of borro
Even after three years of implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, less than 20 percent schools across the country are RTE compliant. The RTE Act, which was implemented in April 2010, specified a time frame of three years for improving
Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, whose government is battling a political crisis after 13 MLAs anounced to quit their assembly membership, on Monday met party chief Rajnath Singh who expressed confidence that the state government will co
In an age where 22-second sound bites become the source of heated political debate and vacuous intellectual discourse, eminent sociologist Ashis Nandy’s indiscretion may seem unpardonable. Clearly, he is too old to adapt to bites-induced int
Remember the sultry voice from your Citibank or Standard Chartered relationship manager asking for a meeting to suggest investment A or property B? Especially if you had just deposited a big cheque? Earlier this week, Securities and Exchan
As the government conducts annual pre-budget consultation with different groups, the civil society groups have alleged that such consultations are of no use if held in mid-January. By January 15, different ministries send its plan expendit
If conspiracies, power games, corruption, crime and unexpected twists and turns characterise a racy thriller, the election of the president of the BJP was a perfect political potboiler. On the face of it, Nitin Gadkari’s nomination for a sec
India on Friday said it will continue to press for extradition of David Headley from the US after the Pakistani-American LeT terrorist escaped death penalty for helping plot the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and sentenced to 35 years in jail by an Ame
In a sharp attack on the Centre`s dual pricing policy on diesel for bulk consumers, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Friday termed it as "ill-conceived" and "short-sighted" and demanded its withdrawal. In a har
Google today reported a "steady increase" in government requests to hand over data from Internet users in the second half of 2012. The Web giant`s semiannual "transparency report" showed the most requests came from th
In the world of environmental activism Mark Lynas was god. When he said something it was heard with rapt attention for its sheer gravitas. An ardent and sometimes militant opponent of genetically modified crops, he literally nuked the movement he
