Opinion

PSM Rao While the government highlights its top priority and penchant for lavish spending on the social sector and productive investments, the opposition assails the claims, outright. But both sides conveniently forget their concerns once the annual budget rituals and the related euphoria dies down....

Charudutta Panigrahi Rayagada district has the highest primary school dropout rate — of 11.67 per cent — in Odisha. Every member of the civil society, including myself, is responsible for this reprehensible outcome. Rayagada is a tribal district, and its population is composed largely of...

Dhanada K Mishra Imagine that a close relative at the peak of his/her life has been hospitalised with a life-threatening ailment and the doctor has asked you whether or not to place this person on life support. It happens all the time, and this reality...

Sabyasachee Dash The convincing win of the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi clearly suggests the BJP has failed to develop a story that the electorate could happily identify with. In about half a dozen assembly polls, the unfavourable outcomes for the BJP points, somewhere, to...

Santosh Kumar Mohapatra The finance minister of Odisha, Niranjan Pujari, presented his second full budget February 18, 2020. It was for the fiscal 2020-21. It was the first time Odisha switched to a digital budget presentation to avoid printing budget documents. As with previous years,...

Bharat Jhunjhunwala The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy has assessed that the incomes of our farmers have increased by 7 percent per year between 2013 and 2019. It will be necessary for the farmer's income to increase by about 30 percent a year to attain...

Yuen YuenAng Normally, a single epidemic, even if mishandled, would not break the Chinese regime. Over the past four decades, the CPC has weathered numerous crises, from the 1989 Tiananmen tragedy and the 2002-03 SARS epidemic to the 2008 global financial crisis. In contemporary China,...

TM Thomas Isaac The cover of the budget speech of Kerala this time was as much a subject of animated discussion as the budget itself.It featured a painting by Tom Vattakuzhy, which depicted the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The painting captures in stark detail the...

Jayati Ghosh Originally, the Aadhaar program’s primary goal was to manage government benefits and eliminate “ghost beneficiaries” of public subsidies. But it has now been expanded to many spheres: Everything from opening a bank account to enrolling children in school to gaining admission to a...

Sujit Kumar Mishra Besides shelters to protect oneself from physical threats and natural occurrences, adequate access to clean fuel, electricity, clean drin king water and sanitation are essentials for public health. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)–4 studied the status of Odisha on these parameters....