The Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, told the Rajya Sabha to-day [December 12, New Delhi] that the conditions which President Ayub of Pakistan had made in his offer of no-war pact with India “have made it rather difficult for us to consider it.” President Ayub had said that certain things …

Why the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is so deeply contested What is the proposal? The winter session of Parliament may see the government push for the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2016. The proposed law, which amends the original Citizenship Act of 1955, mandates that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians …

By fleeing India, Vijay Mallya hasonly helped establish the charges against him The judicial order in the United Kingdom allowing the extradition of businessman Vijay Mallya marks a rare victory for India in getting back a fugitive from the law from another jurisdiction. Coming shortly after the United Arab Emirates …

The Congress may have won this roundof elections, but it needs more allies Post-poll alliances between parties, shaped as they are by intractable realities, are easier to form than pre-poll alliances that have to reconcile competing expectations of the prospective partners. Soon after the results of the Assembly elections were …

The Congress needs to continue to introspect afterthese victories rather than celebrate The political map of India had largely turned saffron in 2014. This has changed after the recent Assembly elections with the Congress registering a convincing victory in Chhattisgarh and just falling short of a majority in Rajasthan and …

A solid syllabus can enable children to hold governments to account on sustainability Thousands of schoolchildren demonstrated on the streets of Australian cities at the end of November. They were protesting against their government’s lacklustre response to climate change. Their protest march coincided with the G20 summit in Argentina. The …

There are substantive reasons for the questions being raised about the new GDP back series Without in any way impugning the integrity of the Central Statistics Office (CSO), most knowledgeable people are asking: if most important indicators of the Indian economy were better in 2004-2014, how is the GDP growth …

As the BJP’s seal of inevitability is cracked, the Congress must diversify its narrative Election results have an inevitability, a closure once they are announced. The very numbers add to a sense of objectivity and abstraction. The results sound like a pool table score, with the Congress having retained the …

Take samples of a cavity in Soyuz Using knives and shears, a pair of Russian spacewalkers on Tuesday cut samples of material around a mysterious hole in a Soyuz spacecraft docked on the International Space Station that a Moscow official suggested could have been deliberate sabotage. Roscosmos space agency said …

It faced a series of natural calamities Japan on Wednesday selected the Chinese character for ‘disaster’ as its ‘defining symbol’ for 2018, a year that saw the country hit by deadly floods, earthquakes and storms. Japanese TV stations broadcast the annual announcement live, with Seihan Mori, master of the ancient …

Signature fossil of modern epoch may be their leftover bones It is one thing to eat chicken every day. It’s something else to have that on your permanent record, as in the geological record, the remnants of our time that archaeologists or aliens of the future will sift through to …

Addressing issues concerning the banking sector will be one of the immediate priorities of the newly-appointed Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Shaktikanta Das, who has called for a meeting with the chief executives of Mumbai-based public sector banks on Thursday. “To begin with, I have convened a meeting …

Central bank’s sanctity should be preserved: former CEA Former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian said it is important to protect the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) autonomy and there must be open technical discussions on issues in the present context. ‘No politicising’ “I want to convey that preserving the integrity, …

However, market volatility may continue ahead of RBI meet Benchmark equity indices rose sharply on Wednesday as investor confidence grew after the appointment of a new governor for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the State election results fuelling hopes that the government would increase rural spending, among other …

New RBI Governor says he will interact with stakeholders to assess whether liquidity remains a constraint Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said though inflation outlook seems benign, one should be watchful of the developments. After raising interest rates twice in the last six months and changing the monetary …

Group calls for clarification from govt. Anti-corruption campaigners have condemned the British Home Office’s decision to backtrack on plans to suspend a “golden visa” scheme for wealthy investors, just days after announcing the suspension. Last week, the Home Office had said it was planning to suspend the Tier-1 (investor) visa …

Hardline Brexit MPs in Conservative Party seeks change in leadership to extract a new deal from European Union leaders British Prime Minister Theresa May faced a vote of no-confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party on Wednesday evening after some pro-Brexit MPs in the party followed through on their …

Court asks Centre to bring in a law The Meghalaya High Court has asked the Centre to bring in a law to let people of religious and ethnic minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to be given citizenship without any cut-off year or any questions asked. Allowing a writ …

A Parliamentary panel has recommended that the Centre urgently take steps to ensure that the National Security Guard (NSG) — the country’s premier counter-terrorist and contingency force — is equipped with its own dedicated air wing. The committee headed by Congress leader P. Chidambaram observed with anguish that the two …

Priya Prakash Varrier is India’s ‘most searched’ personality Sport-related queries dethroned entertainment as India’s top ‘googling’ obsession in 2018, occupying the top three spots on the list of most searched for ‘items’ online. This is as per the annual trends data released by Google, which it does towards the end …