Editorials

He Jiankui, who claims to have made the world’s firstgene-edited babies, deserves to be rapped but not condemned In November, Chinese researcher He Jiankui set off a storm when he claimed that he had created the world’s first babies, a pair of twin girls, genetically edited with CRISPR-cas9. He said …

Indian politics today reminds one of the first decade of the existence of Pakistan India is literally at the crossroads with the very future of its secular democracy at stake. With five important State Assembly elections in various stages of completion and the general election around the corner, the political …

Make planning fashionable again Extract: The withdrawal of the Indian state from economic decision-making has had consequences on industry Economic planning is not considered fashionable today. Nevertheless, contemporary economic debates will have much to gain by revisiting the ideas on planning, championed in particular by Jawaharlal Nehru. As is well …

India-Pakistan rapprochement and the South Asian future require subnational engagement, starting with Punjab For a flickering moment in the last week of November, it seemed as if Congress provocateur and Punjab Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu might set the geopolitical agenda, when he unabashedly spoke of the need for India and …

Says onus on Odisha, Chhattisgarh governments to hold public consultation In a turnaround, the Centre pulled back from its undertaking in the Supreme Court to appoint an independent agency to conduct public hearings of people in Odisha and Chhattisgarh affected by the Polavaram Multi-purpose Project. The Centre filed an eight-page …

Mandakini, wife of Mr. Kunnikkal Narayanan, Naxalite leader, was arrested in the Kumthala forest in Cannanore district this evening [December 2]. The Police denied that Ajitha, daughter of Mandakini, had been arrested. Earlier reports had said that khaki-clad Ajitha who was alleged to have played a prominent role in the …

The passing of George H.W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States, from 1989 to 1993, is an occasion to contextualise the current turbulence in the world, especially in liberal democracies. Three events — the first Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the …

The growth estimates for the July-September quarter from the Central Statistics Office show that the economy’s expansion predictably slowed. GDP growth weakened to 7.1%, from the robust 8.2% in April-June, as rising oil prices combined with a weakening rupee to dampen demand. Gross value added (GVA) data show five of …

I generally refrain from commenting on editorials and opinion pieces. I recognise that there are points of convergence as much as there are points of divergence between the newspaper and its myriad readers, and even within the newspaper itself. These conversations lend plurality to the newspaper and they should not …

The Telangana government’s recent announcement of the Rythu Bandhu scheme has spotlighted the policy of utilising cash transfer to assist land-owning farmers with a non-agricultural income — instead of the traditional policy measures of price interventions, trade restrictions and farm loan waivers. While the scheme is nominally intended as investment …