In conversation with Taru Bhatia, Rajan Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), explains why the industry has failed to reach the rural market with internet connectivity, the limitation of wired network and how the entry of Reliance Jio has changed the way data is consumed. T
The lumbering waddle of the Indian internet has been a rich fount of humorous tropes. It fuels a sub-culture that shines an unflattering spotlight on a truth that’s comic and tragic in equal measure. Sample this: slow internet is more painful than breaking up with your girlfriend. Funny. But a trope is a rhetorical device, an easy to grasp intellectual essence that of
The clash at the Delhi University’s Ramjas College between the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the All India Students Association (AISA) did not happen in a vacuum. Rather, the incident, triggered by attempts to bar two Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students from a seminar at Ramjas College for their alleged “anti-India” stance, symbolises a g
The major upsetting of political apple carts globally in the past year has serious ramifications for multilateral establishments. With increasing clamour against immigrants and “unfair” trade practices, and the imperative to provide jobs to an estimated 201 million unemployed people in the world, protectionist rhetoric has found resonance in wide swathes of the world’s populat
What is the thinking behind launching the Swaraj party? To answer that question, we have to go back in time and see why we formed the Aam Aadmi Party [AAP]. Those in power, in assemblies and parliament, feel that now that they have got power, and they are the ones who make laws and policies, why they should listen to civil society people who are not going
Known for his indelible roles in Gangs of Wasseypur and Nil Battey Sannata, Pankaj Tripathi hails from a village in Bihar where many people still don’t have TV sets at home. His parents are farmers in Gopalganj district and the down-to-earth actor likes working in his farm whenever he visits his parents. From participating in folk theatre during cultural programmes in his villag
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in independent analyses, have declared 2016 the hottest year since 1880. Scientists have said that the planet witnessed three consecutive years of record heat. The rise in global temperature in these years has been mostly due to human influence. Accordin
In 2000, we set out on an uncharted journey. Neither did we have any strategy nor any idea about how far we could go. I still remember the day when we took the first meal to a government school. The children loved it. I did not believe that we would go with food the next day as well, but we did, and now we have been doing this for seventeen years. The Akshaya Patra Foundation was
While presenting the budget, the finance minister made an announcement about making donations to political parties more transparent. If the proposals to amend the relevant laws are approved by parliament, from April 2017 donations to political parties can be made in cash only up to Rs 2,000; payments of higher value will be only through cheques or digital mode and donors will be able to buy &ls
2016 has been an engaging year for the telecom industry. How do you look at the industry’s growth in terms of policy reform? In the last one year, we have been focused on reforms because we believe that in this sector, which is driven by private sector investment and innovation, reforms are the key. Some of the new reforms are spectrum reforms like spectrum shar
Post demonetisation, what are the challenges faced by banks? Post demonetisation, the major challenges are retention of CASA [current account, savings account] deposits, deployment of these funds, impact of spurt/decline in low-cost deposits on MCLR [marginal cost of funds based lending rate], transformation towards digitalisation and the associated issues l
Sex selection for some feminists is ‘sexist’ and sex selective abortion considered a form of ‘femicide’, regardless of the preferred sex orientation, the location of the practice, or the birth order of the child. India’s child sex ratio (CSR), the primary indicator of missing girls in India, is the lowest since independence at 918 girls per 1,000 bo
Former chief minister of Jharkhand Arjun Munda, of the ruling BJP, is among the leading tribal voices questioning the amendments to the CNTA and SPTA. Portraying himself as a willing arbitrator who can help find a way out, Munda tells how the government could have handled it better. Amendments to the CNTA and SPTA will open the floodgates to the takeover of triba
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s comment on his predecessor Manmohan Singh’s alleged practice of using a raincoat in the bathroom has been met with hostile reactions. It’s difficult to figure out why there’s so much fuss about the simple statement. Yes, the bathroom is usually not far from the toilet or the bedroom, and the remarks launch a new category of
A supreme court verdict on Tuesday put paid to Sasikala Natarajan’s dream of becoming the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, and practically cleared the way for caretaker chief minister O Panneerselvam to continue to govern the state. The apex court found Sasikala, an aide of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, guilty in a two-decade-old corruption case. She will have to spend
Prolific writer and acclaimed journalist Jerry Pinto has edited and written many literary works in different genres. His work ranges from children’s fiction and magazine columns to poetry, and topics from Mumbai to Bollywood. His book about actress Helen titled Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb won the Best Book on Cinema Award. His 2012 novel Em and The Big Hoom, a memoir of liv
Democracy today is changing. It is not a passive exercise anymore where the only participation from citizens was electing governments periodically. Rather, it is proactive today – citizens know more and demand more. In the process, policy formulation is evolving as well. Rece
India has been among the fastest growing economies in the world. World Bank estimated that in the 1960s, approximately 45 percent of Indians lived below the poverty line. This figure came down to around 21 percent in 2011. Furthermore, per capita GDP in India has risen from $83.8 in 1960 to $1,598.3 in 2015. This has made Indians more ambitious. Traditionally, the government distributed the inc
Few knew who Kanhaiya Kumar was before February 9, 2016, a day that saw a protest at Jawaharlal Nehru University which spawned a tsunami which ruthlessly tried to flatten the ideals of tolerance and truth. The university, a rocky island of knowledge in the midst of snooty South Delhi, witnessed the protest by a group of students against capital punishment to the 2001 parliament a
As the participation of women in labour force declines in the country, Sher Singh Verick of ILO explains to Archana Mishra the reason behind this trend, the role education plays and the kind of transformation the country is going through vis a vis women labour force. The participation of women in labour force has declined in India. And we are still not able to f
