Opinion

INDIA SHOULD NOT STAY SILENT ON TIBET

13 Jul 2021 05:36 AM IST

On 6 July 2021, Dalai Lama’s birthday, on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, the Chinese military gathered some people, presumably from the local population, to demonstrate against the occasion being celebrated by some Indian villagers on the Indian side of the LAC. According

Was Stan Swamy singled out?

13 Jul 2021 05:32 AM IST

One hopes that Father Stan Swamy’s death will help improve our justice system and will not be used as a tool to settle political scores. The moment one attempts to do the latter, the whole agenda would get derailed.

GLIMPSING THROUGH THE GLOBAL CONTOURS OF CO-WIN PORTAL

12 Jul 2021 05:40 AM IST

India, the largest democracy, rolled out the world’s largest vaccination drive on 16 January 2021, administering nearly 3006 sites across all its 28 states and eight UTs. And the CoWIN has steered India’s public health response and vaccination vehicle to confront, combat, and control the contagion in a systematic, synchronous,

Subject-specific benchmarking is the need of the hour

12 Jul 2021 05:37 AM IST

Subject-specific benchmarking would substantially improve the quality of classroom processes, and significantly curtail the widespread disparity of academic standards across institutions. It should be at the top of the government’s policy agenda without which it will not be pushed into public discourse and onto the policy agenda of universities.

VIRBHADRA SINGH, THE ONLY LEADER WHO WORKED WITH ALL PRIME MINISTERS

10 Jul 2021 07:44 AM IST

Six-time Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who passed away in Shimla on Thursday morning, would go down in history as the only Indian politician who worked with all the Prime Ministers of the country during his political career spanning nearly 59 years. Handpicked by Jawaharlal Nehru to contest the

PM Modi’s new Cabinet reflects talent and merit

10 Jul 2021 07:42 AM IST

The Cabinet rejig has been regarded as an effort by PM Modi to strike a balance between regional compulsions and meritocracy, in addition to giving a greater say to marginalised communities and beefing up the talent quotient with professionally and highly educated inclusions.

PM MODI’S CABINET: NO TIME TO LOSE

09 Jul 2021 04:27 AM IST

Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi has carried out a major reshuffle of the Council of Ministers, including at the Cabinet level. As is the case with any Union Cabinet, the admixture contains a selection of those chosen for both representational purposes as well as a goodly amount of individuals known

DARK DAYS AHEAD FOR AFGHANISTAN

08 Jul 2021 02:13 AM IST

According to international news reports, US forces left Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase stealthily on Friday night, without informing the new Afghan commander of the base. While leaving they shut off the electricity and left thousands of civilian vehicles, but without their keys. By the time Afghan soldiers got control of the

Criminal justice system needs a revisit post-Stan Swamy

08 Jul 2021 02:10 AM IST

This whole case of Stan Swamy brings out demoralising facts from the crevices of our crumbling criminal justice system to which he was probably the oldest victim charged with terrorism under UAPA 1967.

POLITICAL TEMPERATURE RISES WITH CABINET RESHUFFLE IN SIGHT

07 Jul 2021 07:32 AM IST

It does seem as if the much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle may finally happen, especially after the Prime Minister reshuffled the governors and sent Thawarchand Gehlot onto a gubernatorial posting. Gehlot was Cabinet Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment before this and the SC face of the government. But more importantly, the

A journalist’s road has become more perilous than ever before

07 Jul 2021 07:30 AM IST

When China and other autocratic countries are trying to control the global narratives by spreading misinformation, journalists need to provide fearless in-depth reporting whether it is about the Xinjiang internment camps, Wuhan lab virus escape, Russia’s political protests, Trump’s 6 January catastrophic misadventure, or the existential threat of climate change.

XI’S BASHING-HEADS SPEECH IS RIDICULOUS RHETORIC

06 Jul 2021 02:43 AM IST

Is China’s President Xi Jinping about to be reduced to a caricature? His bluster at Tiananmen Square—the site of the massacre of the students who led China’s democracy movement in 1989—to mark hundred years of the Chinese Communist Party was ridiculous at best, given how almost in the same breath