The sight of flaming barricades and upturned cars in Paris usually sends journalists scurrying to their cliché cupboard. For historically literate commentators, current events in France evoke the storming of the Bastille and the Paris Commune. For the politically minded, they seem more akin to the Popular Front of 1936 …
Read More »From a manifesto to a movement
The author acknowledges in his new book, Modern South India: A History from the 17th Century to Our Times , that part of the pull to write a history of the region was the “South Indianness” of his mother, Lakshmi Devadas Gandhi. In his four-centuries-long story, from 1600 to modern …
Read More »Central bank maintains key interest rate
The Reserve Bank of India has left the key interest rate, or the repo rate, unchanged at 6.5% in its fifth bimonthly monetary policy review for the year on Wednesday. It also maintained its stance of ‘calibrated tightening’, despite lowering inflation projections. All six members of the monetary policy committee …
Read More »Disabilities Act: States going slow on roll-out, says study
Only 10 States have notified rules under Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act A study conducted by the Disability Rights India Foundation (DRIF) on the implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act, across 24 States, has revealed that more than half have not notified the State rules, …
Read More »Naxalite woman leader arrested
Miss Ajitha, said to be a top commander of the Naxalite group which attacked the Pulpalli wireless station recently, was apprehended along with eight others in the Kottiyur forest early this morning [December 3] and taken to the Mananthody police station. The police are reported to have seized from Ajitha …
Read More »PMs agree to continue talks on Kachchativu
The Prime Ministers of Ceylon and India have agreed that discussions on the sovereignty over Kachchativu and connected matters in the Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar should continue. They exchanged views on a number of issues, including territorial waters, delineation of median line and fishing rights. A joint communiqué …
Read More »A moving menace
Mob violence in the nameof cow protection is shredding civic order The violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district is yet another notice of the toll being taken on civic order on account of the failure to crack down on vigilante mobs. Two persons, including a police inspector, lost their lives …
Read More »Stunted, wasted
The national framework to improve nutrition for children must be upgraded on priority The health, longevity and well-being of Indians has improved since Independence, and the high levels of economic growth over the past two-and-half-decades have made more funds available to spend on the social sector. Yet, the reality is …
Read More »‘Our calorie-oriented approach to agriculture is no longer sustainable’
The Principal Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance on rural distress, the GDP back series data, NPAs, and slow GDP growth in the second quarter of this FY The government has come under a lot of criticism over its estimates for economic growth during the United Progressive Alliance years …
Read More »Cutting through the smog
Practical interventions exist to tackle the issue of stubble burning Incidents of stubble burning — following the harvest of paddy crop in Punjab and Haryana — cannot be averted by imposing fines, or giving notice or giving farmers capital subsidy. Instead, the issue requires long-term vision and strategic policy interventions. …
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