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An incredible development in North Korea - the 10-year-old daughter of Kim Jong-un being catapulted into limelight as a likely heir apparent - has triggered speculation about succession and image-building exercise. It could be an over-reaction of South Korea’s intelligence agency to name Kim Ju-ae...

A great religious fervour is sweeping India over the consecration of the newly built Ram temple in Ayodhya. Even though the construction of the temple remains incomplete, the ruling BJP and its affiliates Sangh Parivar outfits turned the event on 22 January into a national...

Realisation finally dawned on the Union Health Ministry when last week it made mandatory for doctors to list reasons for prescribing antibiotics or antimicrobial drugs to patients. “It is an urgent appeal to all doctors in medical colleges to mandatorily mention exact indication/reason/justification while prescribing...

I am writing this from Gujarat, where the government has decided to lift prohibition in one part of the state. As a news report put it, this was done to ‘attract global financial institutions’, and to that end ‘alcohol would be allowed at hotels/restaurants/clubs offering...

The abrupt recall of senior IAS officer Sanjay Bandopadhyay from his role as Chairman of the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) has sparked speculation among observers and babus about the underlying reasons for this unforeseen move. Bandopadhyay, previously occupying a secretary-equivalent position at the...

A fierce debate has begun in Germany over whether the Far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) should be banned after some of its leaders took part in a meeting where consensus was to drive out the minorities even though the country’s Constitution has provisions for banning...

The victory of the ruling-party candidate Lai Ching-te in Taiwan’s presidential election 13 January signifies the island country refuses to be cowed down by China and will not easily barter away its democracy to embrace the Red Dragon’s autocracy. The result shows the people of...

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has embarked on his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from strife-torn Manipur, in what is seen as the party’s narrative-building exercise in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections due in April-May. The 6,700-km yatra that will culminate in Maharashtra will bring...

It was only expected that the relationship between India and Maldives would come under strain following the victory of pro-Chinese Mohamed Muizzu in the recent presidential election of the archipelago. In fact, a key plank of his poll campaign was the “India Out” slogan and...

The temple inauguration in Ayodhya closes a chapter in our history that many youngsters will not know about, but the rest of us have lived through. It concerns the BJP, the reasons for its rise after four decades of stagnation and the man who elevated...