Opinion

S Saraswathi Raj Bhavans became the venues for protests by members of the Congress party in many states on 27 July “to highlight the gravity of the issue and draw people’s attention to violations of the Constitution” in Rajasthan. The question of determining defection from...

Kevin Watkins “The beautiful thing about learning,” the great blues guitarist BB King once wrote, “is that no one can take it away from you.” Born and raised in poverty, King understood the value of education as a force for change. If only political leaders...

Melvin Durai What a year this has been. So many things seem to have gone wrong, mostly because of the coronavirus pandemic. If I were a scientist, I’d be hard at work, seeking a cure of some sort. But as a writer, there’s not much...

Dhurjati Mukherjee The MSMEs sector, regarded as the growth engine of the Indian economy, is contributing 5 per cent of the GDP. But due to the prolonged slowdown and the pandemic, most of the small and micro enterprises are struggling, given the recession in demand....

Shivaji Sarkar Indian agriculture is a complex mix. It has myriad problems and the solutions suggested are often not practical. Interestingly, the largest beneficiaries of the food dole to the 80 crore poor are the producers of the food grains! It is a dichotomy. Often,...

Jagdish Rattanani The economy is in a bad shape. Everyone knows and experiences the adverse impacts of a fall in growth. In a way, all reference points have disappeared like they do in a tsunami. We don’t know if the sea is on the land...

Prof SN Misra After the fall of Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama had said that the fall epitomised the end of all ideology, particularly of Socialism, and the advent of liberal democracy. When the book ‘End of History’ was slipped under the door of Margaret Thatcher,...

Saeed Naqvi The Saint Sophia museum in Istanbul being reverted into a mosque has brought back, like a powerful refrain, that couplet of Mir Taqi Mir which has been an emotional crutch for me. For instance, when I visited the great Cordoba mosque built in...

Dhanada K. Mishra Mahatma Gandhi said almost seventy-five years ago - “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” This was at a time when the world was not yet faced with the threat of sixth mass extinction. Gandhi was...

Dr. Bhaskar Nath Biswal ‘Shield Yourself Against the Rising Medical Expenses due to Covid-19’. This is the slogan displayed on the website of an insurance company. This is about the new insurance policy it is offering, styled as ‘Corona Kavach’. In fact, all the 30...