Kerala is increasingly becominga transgender-friendly society Where have Kerala’s hijras gone?” was the rhetorical headline of my story on transgender individuals (TGI) published in The Hindu a decade ago. The story opened with this sentence: “After a quarter century of tortured life as a woman trapped in a man’s body …

An oxide of arsenic can help fight cancer Arsenic is an acknowledged villain because of the way it has contaminated groundwater reserves. Its reputation as a poison has a long history and stretches back to fourth century treatises on medicine. This has often led inventive physicians to use the metal’s …

Egyptian economist Samir Amin observed the dangers of our world but also its possibilities On Sunday, August 12, Samir Amin died. With him went a generation of Egyptian Marxists who came of age in the time of Nasserism and departed with the world in tatters. Amin was born in 1931 …

How India can tap into new sources of leadership talent Most CEOs are grappling with one particular challenge, irrespective of industry or geography: getting the right leadership talent. Governments face this challenge too. The Indian government has responded to this challenge by taking the initiative to invite executives from beyond …

India may well clock the highest growth rate globally, but more is needed to create jobs and reduce poverty With more than one quarter of the year and two months of the monsoon over, it is time to take a look at what the whole year is going to be …

Seven decades after Independence, the massive obstacle of caste is still difficult to dislodge At a recent lecture-demonstration of Koodiyattam, a complex form of Sanskrit theatre practised in Kerala, one of the leading exponents of this beautiful art, Margi Madhu Chakyar, performed an episode from the epic literature titled “Kailasoddharanam”, …

‘Moderate food inflation to continue till MSP impact hits’ Retail inflation eased to a nine-month low of 4.17% in July as food inflation cooled to its lowest level since July 2017, according to official data released on Monday. Inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) slowed from the 4.92% …

The death toll from an earthquake on the Indonesian island of Lombok has topped 400, authorities said on Monday, as bodies were still being recovered from the ruins of destroyed buildings. The shallow 6.9-magnitude quake on August 5 levelled tens of thousands of homes, mosques and businesses across Lombok, just …

CNPC to replace France’s Total as the majority stakeholder in South Pars 11 project The next episode of friction between Beijing and Washington could be staged in Iran, where a top Chinese energy firm, defying latest U.S. sanctions, is likely to expand its stake in a giant Iranian gas field. …

Central Bank offers liquidity assistance but no rate hike Turkey’s Central Bank on Monday sought to calm markets rattled by the precipitous plunge of the Turkish lira as a defiant President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan chastised the U.S. for seeking to stab Ankara “in the back”. A dispute between NATO allies …