The month began on a sad note for Sri Lanka’s wildlife enthusiasts, when an 11-year-old tusker was shot dead in Udawalawe National Park, about 160 km southeast of Colombo. The results of the post-mortem examination pointed to a fatal bullet injury in the animal’s head. Caretakers in the park told …
Read More »Yearly Archives: 2018
Finding Rabindranath Tagore in Japan
It was mid-summer in 1916. The Indian philosopher-poet, Rabindranath Tagore, opened the window of the Shofukaku or Pavilion of Wind Swept Pines that he was lodging at, in the Sankeien gardens of the Japanese port city of Yokohama. A salty breeze wafted up the bluff that overlooked the ocean, holding …
Read More »Trade, tariffs and opioid addiction
About a week ago at the G20 meetings in Buenos Aires, over a dinner that featured sirloin steak, caramel-rolled pancakes and glasses of Malbec, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly talked trade, tariffs and fentanyl. The first two have grabbed headlines internationally, but the third has …
Read More »The Valley of AI draws the ire of students
The authorities’ plan to turn Tübingen, a small city in southern Germany best known for its eponymous university, into an investment hub for artificial intelligence (AI) met with a hurdle last week when students and activists organised a demonstration. Some of the companies that are making investments in this initiative, …
Read More »Piers placed for world’s tallest railway bridge
The Northeast Frontier Railway Construction Organisation has put in place tall piers near Manipur’s Noney for the tallest railway bridge in the world. The bridge, across the valley of river Ijai, is part of the 111 km Jiribam-Tupul-Imphal project. Once completed, it will have a pier height of 141 m. …
Read More »Cloud over key Tibetan meet
Since 1999, when the Karmapa and his sister fled to Dharamshala, the government has hosted him and allowed him to set up his congregation. Since then he has grown in prominence and is now considered as a possible successor to the Dalai Lama’s political clout over the Tibetan refugee population …
Read More »In Manipur, panic over dead livestock
More than a month after unknown predators began killing livestock in six districts of Manipur, experts roped in from Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India (WII) identified stray and domesticated dogs as the culprits. But the mystery of the nocturnal attacks was far from solved in some parts bordering Myanmar; the …
Read More »‘India lagging in information warfare’
Ex-Generals call for indigenisation Lieutenant-General Vijay Oberoi (Retd.) said on Saturday that despite major advancements in the field, India was still banking on imported information warfare techniques, which could be fatal. He was speaking at a discussion on “Information warfare: the new face of war” at the Military Literature Festival …
Read More »Gujarat stares at acute water crisis
Following a deficit monsoon, Gujarat is staring at an acute water crisis as the 204 dams and reservoirs that supply water for drinking and irrigation to various parts of the State are drying up even before the winter ends. Kutch, parts of Saurashtra and north Gujarat are likely to face …
Read More »Trainspotting from the steam age to the Metro era
With a collection of coaches, locos and other memorabilia, the Railway Museum in Howrah is a delight for train enthusiasts A locomotive carrying coal from East Pakistan crossed over to the Indian territory when the war with Pakistan broke out in 1971. The single-coach, green-coloured locomotive, with clear markings in …
Read More »CJI spotlights the law on death penalty
Persons on death row are priority for the Supreme Court, says Ranjan Gogoi A series of Supreme Court decisions after Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi took over as top judge has seen the Supreme Court veer away from the death penalty and point out lapses in the way justice …
Read More »Report on ‘toxic’ talc worries India
Health Canada opens risk assessment draft flagging health risks linked to talcum powder use for public comments The debate over whether talcum powder poses serious health risks is in the spotlight again. A risk assessment draft on talc published by Health Canada, the country’s public health department, states that talcum …
Read More »Auroville shows the way to eco-friendly lifestyle
The international township promotes use of alternatives to plastics and innovative recycling or upcycling of non-biodegradable material The international township of Auroville is taking the lead in developing an eco-friendly lifestyle, with alternatives to plastics and innovative recycling or upcycling of non-biodegradable material. Eco Service, a waste management company, has …
Read More »Week to NRC deadline, many are clueless
A majority of the 40.7 lakh people excluded from the draft don’t know how to find a place on the list A majority of those excluded from the complete draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam have no clue how to go about getting back on …
Read More »Legislature session likely to be stormy
The winter session of the State legislature, set to begin in Belagavi on Monday, is likely to raise a lot of heat, with the BJP already on a war path against the Janata Dal (S)-Congress coalition. The BJP, which according to sources has not stopped trying to woo MLAs from …
Read More »Debt relief certificates given to Sedam farmers
The crop loan waiver scheme introduced by the State government brought the smiles back on the faces of debt-ridden farmers in Sedam taluk in Kalaburagi district on Saturday. Sedam taluk has been selected on a pilot basis for the scheme. As many as 353 farmers who had borrowed crop loans …
Read More »Cloud over key Tibetan meet as Delhi stalls Karmapa’s return
Govt. is unhappy with Dorje’s decision to acquire Dominican citizenship The indefinite postponement of the 13th Religious Conference of the Schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon Tradition, which was scheduled for November 29 and 30 in Dharamsala, has once again turned the spotlight on differences between the government and the …
Read More »Uneasy truce
The U.S. action against a top Huawei executive threatens the tariff thaw with China The 90-day trade truce between China and the United States reached over the weekend on the sidelines of the G20 meet in Argentina is already proving to be fragile. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei’s chief financial officer …
Read More »The Michel test case
The extradition may have been a diplomatic success, but don’t tout it as a political victory The extradition to India of British businessman Christian Michel, alleged to be the middleman in the AgustaWestland helicopters case who bribed officials to secure the deal, is a diplomatic success for a number of …
Read More »End this long trauma
It is time to repeal the Habitual Offenders Act, which has only ended up re-stigmatising marginalised communities Consider this. Fifteen crore individuals, better known as the Denotified Tribes (DNT) of India, continue to be considered ‘criminal by birth’. The term, ‘De-notified and Nomadic Tribes’, can be traced to the Criminal …
Read More »