Editorials

Structural reforms are needed to bring accountability to the credit rating industry After the IL&FS crisis, the Securities and Exchange Board of India is now trying to increase the level of scrutiny on credit rating agencies that failed to warn investors about it. SEBI has come out with new guidelines …

A large number are living outside reserves, making the species vulnerable Why is the death of tigress Avni controversial? Since 2016, the deaths of 13 people in the Pandharkawda divisional forest of Maharashtra have been attributed to tigers and at least five of them to Avni, a 6-year-old with two …

The Madras High Court to-day [November 14, Madras] struck down the revised higher telephone tariffs holding them to be “arbitrary, unreasonable and unjust.” Mr. Justice T. Venkatadri, delivering the judgment, said that to his mind the imposition of fee for each extra call constituted an “intolerable burden.” The Department had …

A car, completely Indian, for Rs. 6,000 — taxes of course, excluded. Is it just a restless young man’s dream or the flash of a genius? None would know, not even Mr. Sanjay Gandhi, the 21-year-old son of the Prime Minister, unless and until he gets going with his project. …

The Admiralty announces [on November 11 at 11-50 p.m.] an intercepted German Naval wireless message, issued through the medium of the warship ‘Strassburg’ to all warships, destroyers and submarines in the North Sea and Baltic, quotes the Armistice terms and adds that the blockade which was instituted in defiance of …

Quad members still face the challengeof defining its common agenda As officials from the ‘Quadrilateral’ grouping of India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. meet in Singapore on Wednesday, their challenge will be to accurately describe their common agenda. The Quad is billed as four democracies with a shared objective to …

A meeting of OPEC and its allies in December will decide the future course of oil prices The fickle nature of the global petroleum market has been on display over the last few days as prices reacted to statements and counter-statements by producers and consumers. Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia …

Making sense of fast-changing political developments in the run-up tothe general election Ideology may be dead in the Indian political landscape, except in some crannies of the Left parties. Fast-changing developments, where alliances are being forged to take on a bigger adversary, are without any long-term allegiances. These have produced …

It is yet to be tested on issues related to the Goods and Services Tax Since at least 1974, when the Supreme Court commented on the Constitution envisaging a cooperative federal structure, federalism has come a long way in India. In relation to the imposition of President’s rule under Article …

Pakistan knows what it stands against, but what it stands for remains obscure, says historian Farzana Shaikh Pakistan is often called a “security state”, one in which the army has a country rather than a country having an army. Farzana Shaikh, London-based historian and author of ‘Making Sense of Pakistan’, …