Stories you must not miss this weekend

From Gauri Lankesh murder case to cabinet reshuffle, from Swachh Bharat to terror tale from Pilibhit, here is your weekend reading list

GN Bureau | September 9, 2017


#Weekend Stories   #Gauri Lankesh   #Gauri Lankesh Murder   #Swachh Bharat   #Open Defecation   #Pilibhit Tiger Reserve   #Maharashtra   #Sudhir Mungantiwar  


There are many surmises: was she killed because she was anti-establishment? Was she killed because of the rise of that right-wing that disliked her anti-Hindutva stance? Was she killed because she had upset Naxalites as she had recently mainstreamed some of them working in tandem with the Karnataka government? Is this not an irony that of late there has been a tendency to intellectualise the crime which is a remedy worse than disease?

Read: Don’t jump to conclusions on Gauri Lankesh murder


All her life, she had been used to having a toilet at home. But when she came to Hirmathla, 25 years ago as a child bride, she was shocked to see that her new home did not have a toilet. “I had no idea how I would live my entire life here,” she recalls. In fact, back then, none of the 140 households in Hirmathla had toilets. As a coy bride, she often wondered how different life in her village and Hirmathla was despite the two not being located too far. Everyone in Hirmathla defecated out in the open, in the fields; women went out before sunrise or after sunset. The 14-year-old Vijay Laxmi found it repulsive; she didn’t want to live through the shameful experience every day of her life.

Read: Heroine of Hirmathla


Political observers have consistently painted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions as being borne out of a dogmatic ideology. But the reshuffle-cum-expansion of the Union Cabinet on Sunday is the latest event that suggests exactly the opposite. Modi, an erstwhile Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak (full-time worker), has shown that as far as the interests of good governance are served, dogma and ideology can wait.

Read: Welcome to the new age of Indian politics


Pilibhit has about 800 sq km forest area, which is nearly 23 percent of the district’s total area. Located close to Nepal, the Pilibhit tiger reserve (PTR), where tigers have killed at least 18 persons – seven inside its Mala range and 11 in the different villages – in the last 11 months, has become the epicentre of man-animal conflict. One among India’s 41 tiger reserves, PTR is spread across 602 sq km and is home to a large number of rare and threatened wildlife species including Bengal tiger, Indian leopard, swamp deer, hispid (brown) hare and Bengal floricans (a kind of bustard). PTR has around 55 tigers, including females and cubs. Their population has been on the rise since 2014, when it stood at 24.

Read: Living and dying with tigers


Sitting in his office on the fifth floor of the Mantralaya building in Mumbai, Sudhir Mungantiwar is all smiles. The minister of finance and planning, Maharashtra, has achieved something which other ministers don’t even aim for. His office is the first administrative unit in the country to have an ISO certification – 9001:2015.

Read: Why this should not be an ISOlated case
 

Comments

 

Other News

Repo rate cut by 25 basis points to 6.25%

The Reserve Bank of India has, for the first time in five years, reduced the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points to 6.25% with immediate effect. Consequently, the standing deposit facility (SDF) rate will stand adjusted to 6.00% and the marginal

Amitav Ghosh’s new work: Connections between the word and the world

Wild Fictions: Essays By Amitav Ghosh HarperCollins, 496 pages, Rs 799.00 Amitav Ghosh, one of a handful of Ind

How markets can help (and also hinder) fight against pollution

In the annals of environmental policy, few ideas have been as transformative as the Emissions Trading System (ETS). Born from the minds of economists in the late 1960s, this market-based approach to pollution control has evolved from a theoretical concept to a global tool in the fight against climate chang

Will Bihar complement the resolution of Viksit Bharat 2047?

As India completes its diamond jubilee as a republic, I am reminded of a statement by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, delivered during an address to the Bihar Chamber of Commerce in Patna on March 28, 2006. He said, “I have visited Bihar numerous times, and it has always been a source of happiness for me to

All you wanted to know about Budget: Key Highlights

Here are the key highlights of the proposal of the Union Budget presented in parliament by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Satuday: NO INCOME TAX ON AVERAGE MONTHLY INCOME OF UPTO RS 1 LAKH; TO BOOST MIDDLE CLASS HOUSEHOLD SAVINGS & CONSUMPTION BENEFITTING

Four engines of development: Agriculture, MSME, investment & exports

Union minister of finance and corporate affairs Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2025-26 in Parliament on Saturday. Here is the summary of her budget speech, Part A: Quoting Telugu poet and playwright Shri Gurajada Appa Rao’s famous saying, ‘A country is not just its

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now



Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter