Growing economic inequality is a major concern in most developing countries and India is no exception. According to Oxfam, the richest 1% in India own more than 40% of the country’s total wealth while the bottom 50% share just 3% of it. One of the proven ways to alleviate economic …

The New York-headquartered International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) became the latest to join the list of tech companies that have made large-scale layoffs since late 2022. The company said it would be laying off about 3,900 employees. This comes on the heels of what has been described as Big Tech’s …

The crucial hurdle in the way of reforming the United Nations comes from the disunited state of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), Csaba Korosi, President of the 77th UNGA, said here on Monday. Speaking at a media stakeout, Mr. Korosi, who arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit ahead …

The Union government will soon kick off the process to set up the 16th Finance Commission, with the Finance Ministry likely to notify the terms of references for the constitutional body, tasked with recommending the revenue sharing formula between the Centre and the States and their distribution among the States, …

Attorney-General R. Venkataramani on Monday in the Supreme Court raised serious objections to petitions being filed in the Supreme Court against various States’ religious conversion laws. “These are State legislations and the State High Courts are hearing them. There are petitions pending there and the same petitioners have now filed …

Since the Government of India began conferring the Padma awards in 1955, the work of laureates in the ‘science and engineering’ category has most often been related to mechanical engineering, materials science, metallurgy, aeronautics, space science, agriculture, plant breeding, mathematics and theoretical physics. Scientific work in these fields is typically …

Political parties are prisoners of their own history. This is what popular analysis will have us believe, often locating the present status of this or that political party in historical events. For instance, one popular narrative seeks to trace the genesis of the present woes of the Congress party in …

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets. Millets have special nutritive properties (they are high in protein, dietary fibre, micronutrients and antioxidants) and special agronomic characteristics (drought-resistant and suitable for semi-arid regions). If millets are good for nutrition …

The government’s decision to issue notice to Pakistan, calling for negotiations to amend the Indus Waters Treaty, must be considered carefully. New Delhi says this extreme step is due to Pakistan’s intransigence over objections to two Indian hydropower projects in Jammu and Kashmir: the 330MW Kishanganga hydroelectric project (Jhelum) and …

Missiles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are likely to be a major future threat, calling for a mitigation strategy as part of an integrated air defence, and underlining the need for a comprehensive air defence solution. That is the biggest takeaway for India from an Army analysis of the war …

In a notice to Pakistan on January 25, India said that it has been compelled to call for the ‘modification’ of the 63-year-old Indus Waters Treaty owing to Pakistan’s persistent objections regarding India’s Kishenganga (KHEP) and Ratle hydropower projects in Kashmir. What is the Indus Waters Treaty? In 1947, the …

The Army has stated that the process for selection of women officers to command assignments in the rank of Colonel, a major step towards bringing them at par with their male counterparts, has been conducted. This flows from the Supreme Court judgment of 2020 upholding an earlier judgment granting permanent …

Air India has called as excessive the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) decision to suspend the licence of one of its pilots for a period of three months following the November 26 incident on a New York-Delhi flight where a lady passenger complained that a co-traveller had urinated over …

The Union Education Ministry on Sunday released data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which showed a 7.5% increase in student enrolments across the country from the 2019-20 figures, with the total enrolments reaching 4.13 crore. The survey revealed that in 2020-21, when the COVID-19 pandemic …

Tamil Nadu was among the top five GST compensation receiving States during the five-year transition period from July 2017 to June 2022, according to a study by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced on July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2022 marked …

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is no stranger to reform. In fact, the zeal with which reforms are introduced often outpaces the capacity to adapt. Every time the administrative system gets back on its feet after a reform move, it is hit by another. Poorer States …

Adam Smith, in his famous work The Wealth of Nations, argued that commodities such as sugar, rum and tobacco, though not necessary for life, are widely consumed, and thus good candidates for taxation. Research in India and around the world supports the use of taxes to regulate tobacco consumption. However, …

The State-level Vulture Conservation Committee (SVCC) has decided to conduct a synchronised vulture census in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. The census has been planned before March as the nesting season is in progress, Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas Reddy has said. At the SVCC’s first meeting held on January 25, …

A swallowtail butterfly disappearing from its previously known ranges from Myanmar and southern China to Vietnam has been recorded for the first time in India. Three butterfly enthusiasts — Atanu Bose, Loren Sonowal and Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi — recorded the “extremely rare” Noble’s Helen (Papilio noblei) from three locations in …

Researchers have uncovered 92 nesting sites containing a total of 256 fossil eggs in central India’s Narmada Valley belonging to titanosaurs, which were among the largest dinosaurs to have ever lived. The finding, published in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals intimate details about the lives of titanosaurs in the Indian subcontinent. …