Opinion

The Odisha government is proposing bicycles as the preferred mode of transportation during the lockdown. However, hardly any official is seen using bicycle to travel within the five to ten kilometre distance between his office and home. Perhaps it’s time both city administration as well...

Santosh Kumar Mohapatra In an extraordinary decision, one of country's oldest asset management companies (AMC), the Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund, has decided to close six of its open-ended debt mutual funds schemes (otherwise known as fixed-income debt schemes) effective from April 23. Those six schemes...

Charudutta Panigrahi The ground-breaking idea of Panchayats handling the registration and monitoring of the migrants, in Odisha, puts the management of the people in the hands of the community. Faced with a pandemic, this move is both audacious and progressive. While the Panchayat is going...

Udaya S Mishra and Balakrushna Padhi A major Sustainable Development Goal is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” This is time to take stock of Odisha’s position on the educational front as per the most-recent survey conducted...

Ajit Ranade Almost five weeks into the lockdown, it’s clear we are faced with a long and hard summer. The economic hardships will worsen unless an urgent stimulus is unleashed. The pandemic has led to a triple whammy, of a supply, demand and financial shock....

V Pattabhi Ram & Sabyasachee Dash The post-COVID scenario will hurt India’s economy in major ways, but not as a scale as nations like the US would be hit. The US, like India, heavily imports low-cost goods from China. China is America's third-largest export market....

Saeed Naqvi A piquant picture of the post pandemic world appeared in the spa town of Lazne Bohdanec, east of Prague, when Czech police patrol ordered a bevy of committed nudists to “cover up” – with face masks, the new fig leaf. The police penetration...

Bharat Jhunjhunwala Banks will come under pressure due to the Corona lockdown. Public Sector banks will most likely be bailed out by the government but private banks may face serious odds. This situation gives us an opportunity to review the causes of the recent failure...

Doctors and researchers throughout the globe are in desperate search for a cure for the COVID-19 pandemic. The scenario is similar to the search for the mythological Sanjeevani, a remedy desperately sought after to save the life of Lakshmana, younger brother of Lord Rama, who...

Running parallel to the global battle against the coronavirus pandemic is a tug of war between two competing narratives about how the world ought to be governed. Although addressing the pandemic is more urgent, which narrative prevails will have equally far-reaching consequences. The first narrative...