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It is an irony of history that when China is celebrating the centenary of its party, the Communist Party of China (CPC), another communist country, Cuba, is confronted with the biggest mass demonstrations for three decades against food shortage, high prices, power outage and one-party...

Few people have understood what Niti Aayog is or what it does, but its head Amitabh Kant has given his view on how to “enhance ease of doing business” in India. His answer is “single window clearances, timely clearances and land acquisition.” Kant also says...

It is often considered that the most important babu in Delhi is not the Chief Secretary but the Police Commissioner. High profile incumbents of this chair have graced Parliament and become Governors in states. Getting to be Commissioner of Police is very often a long...

Anders Auslund Russian President Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine – or, rather, with pretending that Ukraine doesn’t exist. In his annual call-in show June 30, he claimed that “Ukrainians and Russians are a single people.” He then published an article aimed at justifying that...

Mary Robinson The Covid-19 pandemic has recast the world for millions of people. Or, more correctly, the pandemic has exposed and aggravated deep inequalities of race, gender, and class across societies, and highlighted the inability of many political systems to respond in ways that protect...

Former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan was arrested in an espionage case in 1994. This old matter has suddenly come to surface again when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) opposed the bail pleas of two retired Kerala police officers last week. Opposing their bail, the...

Japan has imposed a state of emergency in its capital Tokyo, to be in force during the Summer Olympic Games 2020 to be held in the city from July 23 to August 8. The step has been taken to keep spectators out of the stadiums...

The creation of the Ministry of Cooperation shortly before the Narendra Modi government’s biggest reshuffle July 8 is a shrewd and carefully calculated move by the BJP to tinker with the country’s Constitution in order to consolidate its political base at the grassroots, mainly in...

Stan Swamy, who died a few days ago after being denied bail in the Bhima Koregaon case, was a Tamilian priest who spent decades working with the Adivasis in Jharkhand. Before that he was director of the Indian Social Institute in Bangalore. So why was...

Sensing the current popular mood against the UP government due to the Covid crisis, the party and the Modi sarkar are keen to ensure the party’s success in the upcoming Assembly elections. A lot of that worry has to do with the perceptions about Yogi...