Editorials

Past and present co-exist in Delhi’s Naya Jain Mandir The Shri Digambar Jain Lal Mandir dominates the skyline at the entrance of Chandni Chowk in Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi. The red spires can be seen opposite the Red Fort’s Lahori Darwaza from afar. This temple has its origins in the …

It’s all that’s real — everything else is an illusion It really amazes me how some people will never admit that they were wrong. Take, for instance, this whole anti-Aadhaar-wine-and-cheese-loving-paid-urban-Naxal-pro-JNU gang. The Supreme Court has definitively settled the matter in favour of Aadhaar by a thumping majority of 4:1. And …

Proper public remembrance alone restores dignity and self-respect to the victim Last week saw several women come out publicly to speak about their suffering at the hands of sexual predators in our society. But do we, those of us who saw or heard them, really understand what they experienced, the …

Much of what exists on social media is not conversation or even argument. It is sheer gossip Gossip plays a crucial role in one of our greatest epics. I am talking of the Ramayana, and what Sita has to undergo as a consequence of, yes, gossip after she has been …

A rare case of organ transplant failure highlights the need for outcome registries in India In a rare instance in Mumbai last month, the organs of a 59-year-old brain-dead patient, that were harvested and transplanted, failed in all the three recipients. One of them, a 32-year-old being treated for renal …

The country’s political economy looksall set for a rightward shift The far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro could not have got closer to Brazil’s presidency in a more convincing manner in the first round of elections, that took place on Sunday. The former army captain who belongs to the Social Liberal Party …

An NRC for Tripura will riskcreating new fault lines in the State Just three months after the final draft of the National Register of Citizens for Assam was released, the Supreme Court has tagged a petition seeking a similar process for Tripura. The petition now tagged to the Assam case …

The government’s measures for arresting the rupee’s slide have failed. The approach needs a rethink In the unenviable sequence of conceptually-flawed economic policies – to which also belong demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax’s (GST) rate structure and collection system — the latest is the government’s response to the …

Two recent developments draw our attention to the state of India’s universities. The first is the release of the annual ranking of the world’s universities by the Times Higher Education ( THE ). The other is an announcement by the Prime Minister, as reported in the press, which has an …

In June, farmers in water-starved Kolar were overjoyed when the newly inaugurated KC Valley Project began supplying treated sewage water from Bengaluru . But things went horribly wrong in July when the pipeline began to spew out raw sewage, contaminating the land, the lakes and the groundwater. Mohit M. Rao …

Unfortunately the influenza epidemic does not show any indication of abatement in Madras City and in the mofussil. Official figures in regard to the latter are not available, but in the City, the Health Officer has reported that in the week ending with the 5th instant, the number of deaths …

The Government of India have decided to discontinue further purchases of wheat for export overseas other than (1) Wheat which is absolutely necessary on military and Government account and (2) supplies to Mosopotamia, and they have under consideration the question of reducing these commitments. The Government of India further propose …

Manual scavenging remains a social reality despitea 2013 act calling for its abolition One manual scavenger dies every five days, according to official data. Recently, the Delhi High Court gave the authorities two months to identify manual scavengers in the national capital. The order proved two things — one, manual …

The Windrush scandal has raised questions on Britain’s attitudetowards immigrants In the 1960s, hundreds of immigrants reached the United Kingdom from the West Indies, on the ship, the Windrush. They came to provide an essential service. Sadly, they were not properly integrated into the U.K. and recently many of them …

The movement to make workplacessafe for women must involve us all In what has been called India’s MeToo moment, the social media is thick with women coming forth with stories of sexual harassment. In the quick aftermath of actor Tanushree Dutta’s allegations, in an interview in end-September, of harassment at …

The Nobel to work on growth and long-run sustainability frames a crucial priority American economists William D. Nordhaus and Paul M. Romer were jointly awarded the 50th economics Nobel prize this week in recognition of their work on economic growth and its long-run sustainability. The Nobel committee noted that the …

The #MeToo outpouring demands a new, fair system that delivers brisk justice At last count, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar had been accused of sexual harassment by at least 10 women journalists. These accusations fall in a large spectrum — from inappropriate behaviour to acts of physical …

The verdict is a disappointment — what we need are untainted MPs The September 25 verdict of the Supreme Court on criminalisation of politics left much to be desired. The Election Commission (EC), frustrated by its own helplessness in the matter, has been crying hoarse to the government, political parties …

The judiciary alone cannot take forward the mission of deepening democracy and protecting social freedoms Unless… philosophers become kings in the cities… there can be no cessation of evils… for cities nor, I think, for the human race . — Plato, The Republic After the slew of verdicts by the …

A colour developed by Egyptians thousands of years ago can boost energy efficiency by cooling rooftops and walls, and could also enable solar generation of electricity via windows, scientists say. Egyptian blue, derived from calcium copper silicate, was routinely used on ancient depictions of gods and royalty, according to the …