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In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, Sri Lanka elected a new president, Percy Mahendra Rajapaksa. He had been introduced to parliamentary politics way back in 1970 at the age of 24, by the legendary Sirima Bandaranaike, to replace his deceased father, D. A. Rajapaksa. The young lawyer was exuberant and a mass mobiliser. After […]
While the chief justice has made some important decisions, there are a number of pending constitutional matters before him. Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, also famously known as the people’s judge, completed one year in office on April 24. During his first year, he has been vocal with his criticism of the government while […]
The labelling of journalist Rifat Jawaid as a ‘jihadi’ and holding Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims responsible for riots in Delhi indicate which way the party is headed in the hate-filled political environment. With its victory in Punjab, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) now runs governments in two states. This has given rise to the perception that […]
If the RSS wins this battle, its victory will be pyrrhic. Because India will cease to exist. This is the text of the Sissy Farenthold lecture delivered by author-activist Arundhati Roy at the Lydnon B Johsonon Auditorium, United States. The event was organised by the Rapoport Centre for Human Rights and Justice. Good afternoon, and […]
A 2006 study found that when an individual witnessed a person being dehumanised, the brain regions associated with disgust were found to have relatively higher activation. The recent news of Bajrang Muni Udasin of Sitapur issuing rape threats to Muslim women is one of several such speeches delivered by members of different communities against people […]
State-level Congress leaders must learn to work together without running to the high command to create ‘unity’. They have to save Nehruvian ideas and ideals from the pronounced infirmities of Nehru’s family. It was perhaps an unintended coincidence that the Congress Working Committee should have reaffirmed its faith in the leadership of Sonia Gandhi on […]
If uniformity suddenly acquired greater importance in the eyes of lawmakers, then orders for the colour of the hijab to be exactly that of the uniform could have been issued. I am no scholar of the Quran or the Hadees; I am just an ordinary Muslim woman who had the good fortune of having parents […]
In May 2012, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then serving as the chief minister of Gujarat, described the steepest fuel price hike ever approved by the then government as “a prime example of the failure of the Congress-led UPA”. The BJP and its leaders left no stone unturned to come down heavily on the Manmohan Sigh […]
Recently, fires broke out in the forest surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine. Satellite imagery taken by the European Space Agency showed at least seven fires burning within the plant’s exclusion zone and Ukrainian officials warned that it would be difficult to put them out because the area is controlled by Russian troops. Environmental damage has […]
There is not a single Muslim character in the film with empathy, all of them are shown as evil. A truth that’s told with bad intent, beats all the lies you can invent.”∼ William Blake The expression “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” is well-known. But how many people understand it? It […]
The Gujarat high court has ordered a probe into the alleged custodial torture of two couples belonging to a Denotified Tribe, stating that they “appear to be victims on account of their birth in a particular community”. According to the Deccan Herald, the police allegedly tortured the four individuals until they confessed to an alleged crime, […]
I&B minister Anurag Thakur also said in parliament that 56 YouTube news channels and their social media accounts were blocked in 2021-22. New Delhi: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology blocked 25,368 URLs – including of web pages, websites, pages on social media – between 2014 and 2021. It also issued directions to block […]
An analysis by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has estimated that there were 4.07 million excess deaths in India during the pandemic. The analysis team used data from the civil registration system, the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study and a statistical model that accounted for other COVID-related parameters. According to […]
The thrust on problems like unemployment, agrarian distress, and economic security in SP’s campaign stood in contrast to the BJP’s polarising canvassing along religious lines. New Delhi: If there is one state which can single-handedly change India’s political direction, it is Uttar Pradesh. With a size bigger than many countries and a population as large as […]
With just a day to go before the results of the closely fought assembly elections in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab and Manipur are out, political players are leaving no stone unturned to ensure they get to form the next government. Some are taking recourse to an increasingly popular trend of today – parking party […]
New Delhi: The divestment saga of Central Electronics (CEL) deserves more attention than it is getting. The broad details are well known enough. The public sector undertaking (PSU), founded in 1974 to commercially exploit technologies developed by national laboratories and indigenous R&D institutions, briefly hit the headlines last November when the Narendra Modi government announced its sale […]
New Delhi: A network of Arab and Middle Eastern journalists has asked media organisations, particularly Western ones, to be wary of implicit and explicit bias in their coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying it has observed examples of racist coverage that normalises war in non-European regions. The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA) […]
Amid more frontal assaults on the founding principles of the Indian republic, it is easy to gloss over an innocuous-looking government circular impacting no more than perhaps a couple of dozen students. However, this would be a huge mistake. The National Overseas Scholarship Scheme (NOS) of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment provides funding for students […]
New Delhi: An 87-year-old bedridden woman, a resident of Delhi’s Tilak Nagar, was allegedly assaulted and raped by a man who broke into her house, The incident took place on Sunday afternoon, when the woman’s daughter, who is 65, had gone out to meet a friend. The man attacked her, sexually assaulted her and fled with her mobile […]
On multiple occasions, Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit has put out her Hindutva right-wing political views out in the open unhesitatingly. She has now deleted her Twitter account, after journalists started sharing her tweets. Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit, currently a professor of politics and public administration in Savitribai Phule Pune University, was appointed the new vice-chancellor of India’s […]
