It is getting impossible for reporters to understand voters’ choices My first encounter with fake news was so mundane that it is a blur. It happened during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. I was in Bihar’s Vaishali constituency waiting for a campaign rally to start and struck up a conversation …

In order to address farmers’ distress,the entire agricultural chain needs a reboot Last week, tens of thousands of farmers reached Delhi for a two-day Kisan Mukti Morcha and held the country’s attention. They sought a special 21-day Parliament session to discuss the crisis in India’s agrarian economy. Their key demands …

In order to address farmers’ distress,the entire agricultural chain needs a reboot Last week, tens of thousands of farmers reached Delhi for a two-day Kisan Mukti Morcha and held the country’s attention. They sought a special 21-day Parliament session to discuss the crisis in India’s agrarian economy. Their key demands …

He Jiankui, who claims to have made the world’s firstgene-edited babies, deserves to be rapped but not condemned In November, Chinese researcher He Jiankui set off a storm when he claimed that he had created the world’s first babies, a pair of twin girls, genetically edited with CRISPR-cas9. He said …

Indian politics today reminds one of the first decade of the existence of Pakistan India is literally at the crossroads with the very future of its secular democracy at stake. With five important State Assembly elections in various stages of completion and the general election around the corner, the political …

Make planning fashionable again Extract: The withdrawal of the Indian state from economic decision-making has had consequences on industry Economic planning is not considered fashionable today. Nevertheless, contemporary economic debates will have much to gain by revisiting the ideas on planning, championed in particular by Jawaharlal Nehru. As is well …

India-Pakistan rapprochement and the South Asian future require subnational engagement, starting with Punjab For a flickering moment in the last week of November, it seemed as if Congress provocateur and Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu might set the geopolitical agenda, when he unabashedly spoke of the need for India and …

“Goa is a spiritual destination and I want to show to the world how unique its architecture is,” said heritage photographer Payal Kakkar, whose exhibition of photographs of 16th and 17th Century churches of Goa is set to open on Wednesday. The self-taught photographer is gearing up for her maiden …

‘The word God is for me nothing but the expression of and product of human weaknesses’ If it were written now as a series of tweets, they would surely go viral. Think of it: One of the most famous people in the world is panning religion. “The word God is …

Three astronauts will spend the next six-and-a-half months on the space station A Soyuz rocket carrying Russian, American and Canadian astronauts took off from Kazakhstan and reached orbit on Monday, in the first manned mission since a failed launch in October. Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Anne McClain of NASA and …

Envoy to Yemen lands in capital Sana’a ahead of talks Wounded rebels were flown out of the Yemeni capital Sana’a on Monday for medical treatment, a critical step towards bringing warring parties to planned UN-brokered negotiations in Sweden. The UN-chartered flight had taken off at 6.00 p.m. (1500 GMT) for …

Proposes talks with Xi and Putin to halt the ‘uncontrollable’ arms race U.S. President Donald Trump boasted on Monday that U.S. relations with China have taken a “BIG leap forward” following his meeting in Argentina with President Xi Jinping. “Very good things will happen. We are dealing from great strength, …

While their manoeuvre in the legislature proved inadequate to oust Mr. Rajapaksa’s disputed government, Monday’s appeal court order delivered a legal blow to the legitimacy that the Rajapaksa camp claims. On November 13, the Supreme Court stayed Mr. Sirisena’s dissolution of Parliament and restrained the Election Commission from preparing for …

Professor-research scholar duo invents device that yields a near-accurate mileage of a car Why does your hatchback, sedan or SUV give you a mileage different from what the car manufacturer claims under test conditions? This question made a Mizoram University professor and a research scholar invent a measuring device that …

Amount to be deposited with CPCB The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday directed the Delhi government to deposit an environmental compensation of Rs. 25 crore with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for failing to curb air pollution in the Capital. A Bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh …

Kolkata NGO compiles 35 cases of sexual assault More than 100 differently-abled women and girls have raised allegations of sexual harassment in West Bengal since 2012, a city-based NGO working for the rights of the disabled said. Thirty five cases of sexual assault on differently-abled girls and women were reported …

Bhutan’s new Foreign Minister reiterates the country’s policy of not having full relations with any permanent member of the UN Security Council, including China Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lotay Tshering is expected to visit Delhi in late December, in the first high-level exchange between the Modi government and the newly elected …

A part of ISRO’s new satellite fleet for high-speed Internet services, it will take off from French Guiana A team of top officials and engineers of the Indian Space Research Organisation (IISRO), now stationed in the Guiana Space Centre, South America, is going over the last steps before it sees …

R.K. Nagar bypoll: single judge struck down FIR in March A Division Bench of the Madras High Court expressed surprise on Monday when it heard that a single judge of the court had on March 13 quashed an FIR lodged in connection with the alleged bribing of voters during the …

U.P. govt. to reduce the numbers of ‘unproductive’ cattle by curbing their birth In Uttar Pradesh, where the ban on cow slaughter is taken very seriously, what’s illegal for humans may well prove a godsend to tackle the growing menace of stray bulls: sex selection. The State government plans to …