Vincent Cochetel is the director of the Bureau for Europe at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He joined UNHCR in 1986, initially working as a legal/protection officer in various duty stations, mainly in Eastern and Western Europe. He subsequently managed UNHCR field offices in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Cochetel pa
Increasingly governments worldwide as well as in India are focused on providing citizen services and safety in the most seamless manner that can assist in development. The other name to this can be given as smart cities. An important aspect however remains the reach and coverage of government systems to the masses. While in the past, physical limitations (number of personnel or
The question of economic inequality was always a pressing one, but last year it threw up an unlikely best-seller, Capital by Thomas Piketty. Before and after Piketty, there has been a growing body of literature on the theme (a long list can be found at: inequality.org/books-inequality), including Joseph Stiglitz’s Price of Inequality and Angus Deaton’s The Great Escape for non-exper
Alyque Padamsee, the adman who has built over 100 brands, is also a bestselling author, actor and a great orator. He has 70 major English theatre productions to his name. Famous for his portrayal of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi, Padamsee has won many awards and is regarded as a genius. He is the only Indian to be voted into the International Clio Hall of F
Uttar Pradesh has performed veyr poor in centre’s Swachh Bharat test. In a ranking of 476 cities conducted by ministry of urban development, only one UP city, Etawah, has figured among the cleanest 100 cities. In fact prime minister’s constituency Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh is among the bottom few cities with poor sanitation practices. The temple town ranks 418 among 476 cities. Bula
Service tax is a tax levied on providers of certain service transactions (excluding specified exempted categories). Service providers pay the tax and recover it from customers. It is charged to individual service providers on cash basis, and to companies on accrual basis. This tax is payable only when the value of services provided in a financial year exceeds `10 lakh. As has been mentioned in
A short tract by Michael Walzer, a leading political theorist better known for his masterpiece ‘Just and Unjust Wars’, should be of interest to the Indian readership. The American public intellectual poses the question that has become all the more relevant lately: How do we explain the shift from the values and ideals that won India independence to a different set of ideals that too
Dr Lakshminarayana Subramaniam is a well-known violinist trained in Carnatic as well as western classical music. His career in music started in 1973 and ever since he has amassed over 200 recordings to his credit. He has worked with renowned musicians Yehudi Menuhin, Stéphane Grappelli, Ruggiero Ricci, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Herbie Hancock, George Harrison and
As I leaf through ‘Nature Without Borders’, I am reminded of my visit to the Velavadar national park in Gujarat a few years ago. For a small national park of only 29 sq km, Velavadar packs a punch. It harbours the endemic blackbuck, the endangered Indian wolf; is the largest roosting sight for Montagu’s harrier in the world and the finest place to see one of the rarest –
India has 1,80,657 manual scavengers, reveals the socio-economic caste census. Going by the SECC data it is evident that Maharashtra has the highest number of manual scavengers with 63,713 people still engaged in the practice of cleaning human excreta manually. Following Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh
Soon after the downfall of the USSR, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama theorised in his book ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ (1992) that the age of communism was over and the western capitalism was now going to be the permanent feature. Four years after this proclamation of the ‘victory’ of capitalism, however, the tiny Himalayan nation of Nepal was
Founded in 2009, the AGI aims to address the concerns and interests of the Indian geospatial industry. In conversation with Ridhima Kumar, AGI’s executive director Bharti Sinha talks about the changing attitudes of the government towards the industry and its willingness to encourage the use of geospatial technology in India.
The pre-1993 executive-led system of appointment of judges lost favour with people for trampling upon judicial independence. The post-1993 judiciary-led collegium system faced criticism for lack of transparency and accountability. The trust deficit continues to be a challenge with the new system under the national judicial appointments commission (NJAC) raising fears on both counts.
Do we in India have the concept of privacy? The supreme court is hearing a bunch of petitions that have objected to Aadhaar because it infringes on citizens’ privacy. The government has said ‘right to privacy’ is not a fundamental right. It does not figure in the constitution, of course, even if the apex court has read ‘right to privacy’ as part of the all-importan
Established in 1996 as a joint venture between Esri Inc of USA and NIIT Technologies of India, Esri India is the country’s leading GIS software and solutions provider. In an interview with Ridhima Kumar, Esri India’s president, Agendra Kumar gives a brief overview of the GIS industry in India, its challenges and the future prospects.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz is the third UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and has held the position since 2014. Tauli-Corpuz was also the chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues from 2005 to 2010. Her work for more than three decades has been focused on movement building among indigenous peoples and also among women, and she has work
Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garcés is the elected chairperson-rapporteur of the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group (OEIGWG) on Transnational Corporations and other Business Enterprises with Respect to Human Rights. She is a top Ecuadorian politician and diplomat who is currently the ambassador of her nation to the UN Office at Geneva. Earlier, Garc&eacut
Bhaskar Chatterjee, director general and CEO of IICA (a think tank of ministry of corporate affairs), is a retired IAS officer. His current role is the logical followup to the last post he held, as secretary of the department of public enterprises (DPE). He spoke to Sweta Ranjan about his role in drafting the new Companies Act, which introduced the
India’s malnutrition is back in international news, and for rather intriguing reasons. Some nasty articles have appeared in one of the most prestigious international magazines, the Economist – ‘Sparing Mr Modi’s blushes’, in the June 27 edition, and ‘Of secrecy and stunting’, in the July 4 edition. Regardless of its pretentions, the Economist appears to
Year 2014 was the warmest year on record. This has been confirmed in the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) State of the Climate in 2014 report which published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
