Editorials

The Union Cabinet to-day [December 10, New Delhi] had a brief discussion on Mr. Nath Pai’s bill to restore to Parliament the right to amend any part of the Constitution. It is believed they took note of the divergence of opinion in the ruling party over the decision to support …

On the tweeting President who makes the very existence of journalists irrelevant I don’t tweet much. And not using Twitter today is probably equivalent to a reporter not learning shorthand a few decades ago. You can get by, but only barely. If smart mining of the platform can yield useful …

India wins its first maiden Test of a series in Australia, firing hopes of a larger turnaround When R. Ashwin dismissed Josh Hazlewood and Virat Kohli roared in delight at the Adelaide Oval on Monday evening, they firmly threw down the gauntlet to hosts Australia. India’s 31-run victory over Australia …

Urjit Patel stepping down as RBI Governor is a major embarrassment for the government The Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel has cited personal reasons for resigning with immediate effect, but anyone who has followed the events of the last couple of months will know it was anything but …

Its electoral tactics have logic but its ideologicalstrategy does not On December 11 last year, Rahul Gandhi was elected as president of the Congress party. Four and a half years after the party’s debacle in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Assembly election results of five States that will be …

Instead of surveillance technologies, help TB patients by providing rights-based interventions Decades of global neglect have resulted in tuberculosis (TB) becoming the leading cause of adult deaths in most of the global south — it kills nearly two million people a year. This is shocking given that TB is curable …

GM crops reduce pesticide use, increase yields and profits, and pose no health hazards A review article, “Modern technologies for sustainable food and nutrition security”, which appeared in the November 25 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Current Science, is deeply worrying. The article was authored by geneticist P.C. Kesavan and …

The opposition to the Sabarimala order is reflective of a wider gender inequality in Malayali society Kerala’s reputation as a society that has evolved to an exceptional degree may have taken a bit of a beating. The reputation itself has been built on the strides made in the sphere of …

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday wrote to the Chief Ministers of the States ruled by the Congress and its allies, urging them to pass a resolution in their Assemblies asking the Centre to pass the women’s reservation Bill in the next session of the Lok Sabha. In his letter …

The Minister for Transport and Shipping, Dr. V.K.R.V. Rao, to-day [December 9] suggested that obstacles to free movement of vehicles from State to State and within a State itself should be removed. Dr. Rao said the Inter-State Transport Commission at its standing committee meeting in January next was expected to …

The latest trade figures published by the Reserve Bank of India confirm the damage caused by high global oil prices in the last few months. India’s current account deficit (CAD) widened to 2.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the July-September quarter, a four-year high, under increasing pressure from the …

As an environmental scourge that killed an estimated 1.24 million people in India in 2017, air pollution should be among the highest policy priorities. But the Centre and State governments have tended to treat it as a chronic malaise that defies a solution. The deadly results of official apathy are …

Attempts to understand the intangible actually end up delivering something tangible. Trust is the driving factor for The Hindu Open House, where readers are invited to interact with the senior editorial and management teams of this newspaper. Trust is a qualitative attribute; no mathematical formula can capture its power. In …

The BSP faces a situation in which it either emerges stronger nationally or loses significance beyond Uttar Pradesh The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) finds itself at a unique juncture that is important for the party and for democratic and contemporary politics. As a party, it has faced trials in the …

Stirring reminders of the distance travelled and challenges ahead in securing human rights Paris flared — Paris, which the divine sun had sown with light, and where in glory waved the great future harvest of Truth and of Justice. Émile Zola, Paris I asked my soul: What is Delhi? She …

India is bombarded with electoral rhetoric that is shorn of care for citizens who inhabit desolate worlds Every person who aspires to political power ought to read the book, Considerations on Representative Government, by John Stuart Mill. Ideally, democracy is not the best form of government, wrote Mill, unless it …

Our veterinary institutions might want to think about the feasibility of this idea by choosing, training and deploying animals A few weeks ago, there was an interesting news item which said that dogs can identify a person infected with the malarial parasite, and that they use their superb sense of …

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 …

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 …

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 …