Durgam Chinna’s life turned upside down last October, when her 40-year-old husband Venkatayya was found dead in his cotton fields in the village of Ankushapur, in the Jayashankar district of Telengana. Faced with mounting debts which had touched Rs. 8 lakh, the tenant farmer consumed pesticide. For his widow and …
Read More »Monthly Archives: November 2018
Imran looks for fresh start
Making another pitch for talks, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan called for India to make a fresh start during his term to revive the dialogue process between the two countries. The talks have been stalled on the issue of terrorism for more than a decade. “It is not in Pakistan’s …
Read More »Rolling back
The Polish government’s decision to rescind the forced retirement of several Supreme Court judges is a welcome sign of its willingness to improve compliance with the rule of law. This could begin a process to resolve the stand-off between Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS) government and the European Union. …
Read More »Corridor of hope
The announcement by India and Pakistan of plans to operationalise a visa-free corridor between Dera Baba Nanak in Indian Punjab and Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan’s Punjab heeds a longstanding plea of Sikh pilgrims. That demand had gathered pace in 1995, when Pakistan renovated the Kartarpur gurdwara, situated on the site …
Read More »Looking beyond the optics
President Ram Nath Kovind’s choice of Vietnam as the first Southeast Asian country to visit in his capacity as the President is not surprising. A close ‘ally’ of India for over 70 years, and not limited to official diplomatic ties, Vietnam is critical for India’s foreign policy at the regional …
Read More »Not by ordinance
There is a clamour by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Sangh Parivar for an ordinance and later a statute (i.e. Act) for building a Ram temple over the ruins of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya immediately. No more waiting, they say. The supposedly neutral Justice J. Chelameswar, who retired …
Read More »Stopping the virus
Maya Madan, 22, lives in a brick hut in Hamid Khedi village. A few feet from her home, which is in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, is a narrow street, criss-crossed by ditches full of dirty water. The buzz of mosquitoes breeding in these pools fills the air. It does …
Read More »A toothpick and a Guinness World record
Manoj Kumar Moharana, a youth from Odisha’s Ganjam district, set a Guinness World Record by making 36 vertical rotations of a toothpick in the mouth in one minute.For the 24-year-old post graduate in mathematics, this is his second record. On August 28, 2017, he broke a Guinness World Record title …
Read More »New green norms to aid builders
The recent notification issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change allowing local bodies to stipulate environmental conditions while granting building permission will improve the launch pipeline and at the same time, help save time and cost for developers.As per the notification, municipalities, development authorities and district panchayats …
Read More »Banks under PCA see retail loan share jump 400 bps
The 11 state-run banks under the Reserve Bank’s prompt corrective action (PCA) framework have seen a 400 basis points increase in their share of retail loans at 19% of the system in the four years ended September 2018, says a report.The Reserve Bank began to place state-run banks under the …
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