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The spectacle of hundreds of thousands of people congregating at Har Ki Pauri Ghat in Haridwar, Uttarakhand on the occasion of the ongoing Mahakumbh Mela at a time when the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic is ravaging the country is the most unedifying, to say...

The BJP government is at it again. It has developed quite an expertise in coining catchy phrases, slogans and managing headlines as its main tools of governance rather than hard work, comprehensive planning and delivering on its promises. This time the eye-grabbing phrase is ‘Tika...

The cryptic comment Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made after four people were killed and seven injured in firing by Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at Sitalkuchi in Cooch Behar during polling on 10 April was simply “shame on...

This morning has brought the headline ‘People are free to choose their religion: Supreme Court’. The report was about a public interest litigation which sought to stop Indians from converting out of the faiththey were born in. The judges were angry. They said: “What kind...

Everybody loves a diplomat. Last month, after revamping its policy of inviting interns, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) opened its doors to interns. It was swamped by a deluge of applications from across the country. Under the new policy, MEA will take in about...

Peter Singer The right to assistance in dying continues to gain ground. Last month, the Spanish parliament passed legislation, expected to come into effect in June, permitting doctors to assist adult patients to die if they have a “serious and incurable” disease that causes “unbearable...

Five years ago, I requested the Head of the Bar Council of India to get animal welfare introduced as a subject in the law colleges. He did it immediately. The result has been much more sensitive and informed lawyers, an annual moot court that is...

The revelation on April 4 in an online French journal, Mediapart, based on findings of AFA or Agence Française Anticorruption, that the Rafale fighter jet deal involved a payment worth one million euros (Rs 8.62 crore) by its maker Dassault to an Indian middleman has...

The death of 22 security personnel in a deadly Left Wing Extremists (LWE) or Maoist ambush in the jungles of Bijapur in Chhattisgarh on April 3 has brought to the fore not only the inherent flaw in the Centre’s handling of the problem but a...

The Election Commission’s role in conducting free and fair polling during the ongoing elections to the four states of West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Pondicherry has unfortunately caused misgivings. Starting from the use of Aadhaar data to send bulk...