There is something rude and unpleasant in the way the Government is going about the task of demanding a big say in the appointment of judges in constitutional courts. The latest salvo is from Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, who has written to the Chief Justice of India to request …

The lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in China is set to boost global oil demand this year to a record high, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday, while price cap sanctions on Russia could dent supply. “Two wild cards dominate the 2023 oil market outlook: Russia and China,” the …

The ASER 2022 report shows that government schools saw a sharp rise in enrolment for the first time in 16 years; basic literacy levels of children have taken a big hit, with their reading ability, as compared with numeracy skills, worsening much more sharply and dropping to pre-2012 levels As …

The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is mobilising Muslim support to create a “caliphate”, it wants to replace Indian nationalism with an “international Islamic order” and considers idol worship a “sin”, the Union Home Ministry has listed objectives before the Supreme Court for banning the organisation. A petition seeking …

As Syria enters the 13th year of its lethal civil conflict, a bomb explosion in Istanbul on November 13, that killed six persons, seems to have accelerated a diplomatic process which could bring peace to that tormented land. Turkish authorities immediately blamed Kurdish militants in Syria, represented by the People’s …

Come April and it will be 50 years since the Supreme Court of India delivered its verdict in Kesavananda Bharati vs State of Kerala. The judgment is widely recognised as a milestone in India’s history. In holding that Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution was not plenary, that any change that …

The Tamil Nadu Assembly witnessed unprecedented scenes on January 9 when Governor R. N. Ravi, while delivering his customary address to the House, omitted certain paragraphs from the text prepared by the State government. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin later moved a motion to take on record only the transcript distributed …

The Union of India calls the Bhopal gas leak tragedy the world’s largest industrial disaster. On the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas escaped from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, leading to hundreds of deaths. Thirty-nine years after the incident, …

It is now clear that all warnings in the Mishra Committee report almost 50 years back went unheeded in the race to develop Joshimath by successive governments since 2001. It was clearly pointed out that Joshimath township is situated on debris of earlier landslides and would slip someday. But development …

Global overturning circulation—the equatorward transport of cold, deep waters and the poleward transport of warm, near-surface waters— controls ocean heat distribution and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, thus playing a critical role in global climate. It is thought that tectonic changes might have led to the formation of two separate water …