Opinion

Ajit Ranade In the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections in the United States, the Guardian newspaper published a story of how the Obama election campaign was building a huge database on voters using the power of Facebook. This was thus the first election in...

Shivaji Sarkar The call for Atmanirbhar Bharat has been given a new touch for “enhancing capacity, creativity and skills”. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Modi made a pitch for a virtual halt to exports of critical raw materials and minerals. Over the decades,...

Saeed Naqvi Rahat Indori was five years old when the much loved poet Majaz died of a stroke after he was found on the freezing terrace of a country liquor shop in Lucknow’s Qaisar Bagh. As someone born to a poor cloth mill labourer, Rahat’s...

Dr. SN Misra & Sanjaya Kumar Ghadai The 86th Amendment to the Constitution made free and compulsory education to all children in the age of 6-14 a Fundamental Right. However, early childhood care and education remained as an unenforceable mandate for the state to children...

Shivaji Mohinta A roadside tailor who normally does stitching and alteration is now producing hand-made masks from residual cloth pieces. An e-rickshaw operator seeing reduced numbers of passengers has converted his vehicle into mobile vegetable kiosk. People engaged in different trades and vocations are adapting...

Philippe Le Houérou For most countries, navigating the protracted economic slump brought on by Covid-19 is starting to look more like a marathon than a sprint. According to our estimates at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), domestic private investment and foreign direct investment in emerging...

Dhurjati Mukherjee The process of governance over the years, via discussions and debates, has undergone a change in India. As is evident, there is a new trend of launching policies and programmes in a hurry without ensuring their effectiveness. The need for infrastructure development has...

John Andrews Haram Lubnan, poor Lebanon. As if hosting more than a million refugees from the Syrian war next door, an economy in free-fall, and Covid-19 weren’t enough, now the catastrophic destruction of the port of Beirut has left more than 150 dead, over 6,000...

Melvin Durai A  headline on the New York Times’ website recently caught my interest: “Trump Puts Pentagon in Political Crossfire With Tata Appointment.” I immediately clicked on the link, wondering what relationship this ‘Tata’ had with the famous Tata family of India. Had President Trump...

Jayati Ghosh The United States, Brazil, and India have surged ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, with no peak in sight. They (and fourth-place Russia) have one thing in common: macho leaders with authoritarian personalities....