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The crucial hurdle in the way of reforming the United Nations comes from the disunited state of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), Csaba Korosi, President of the 77th UNGA, said here on Monday. Speaking at a media stakeout, Mr. Korosi, who arrived here on Sunday on a four-day visit ahead …

The Union government will soon kick off the process to set up the 16th Finance Commission, with the Finance Ministry likely to notify the terms of references for the constitutional body, tasked with recommending the revenue sharing formula between the Centre and the States and their distribution among the States, …

Attorney-General R. Venkataramani on Monday in the Supreme Court raised serious objections to petitions being filed in the Supreme Court against various States’ religious conversion laws. “These are State legislations and the State High Courts are hearing them. There are petitions pending there and the same petitioners have now filed …

Political parties are prisoners of their own history. This is what popular analysis will have us believe, often locating the present status of this or that political party in historical events. For instance, one popular narrative seeks to trace the genesis of the present woes of the Congress party in …

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets. Millets have special nutritive properties (they are high in protein, dietary fibre, micronutrients and antioxidants) and special agronomic characteristics (drought-resistant and suitable for semi-arid regions). If millets are good for nutrition …

The government’s decision to issue notice to Pakistan, calling for negotiations to amend the Indus Waters Treaty, must be considered carefully. New Delhi says this extreme step is due to Pakistan’s intransigence over objections to two Indian hydropower projects in Jammu and Kashmir: the 330MW Kishanganga hydroelectric project (Jhelum) and …

In a notice to Pakistan on January 25, India said that it has been compelled to call for the ‘modification’ of the 63-year-old Indus Waters Treaty owing to Pakistan’s persistent objections regarding India’s Kishenganga (KHEP) and Ratle hydropower projects in Kashmir. What is the Indus Waters Treaty? In 1947, the …

Air India has called as excessive the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) decision to suspend the licence of one of its pilots for a period of three months following the November 26 incident on a New York-Delhi flight where a lady passenger complained that a co-traveller had urinated over …

The Union Education Ministry on Sunday released data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which showed a 7.5% increase in student enrolments across the country from the 2019-20 figures, with the total enrolments reaching 4.13 crore. The survey revealed that in 2020-21, when the COVID-19 pandemic …

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is no stranger to reform. In fact, the zeal with which reforms are introduced often outpaces the capacity to adapt. Every time the administrative system gets back on its feet after a reform move, it is hit by another. Poorer States …

Adam Smith, in his famous work The Wealth of Nations, argued that commodities such as sugar, rum and tobacco, though not necessary for life, are widely consumed, and thus good candidates for taxation. Research in India and around the world supports the use of taxes to regulate tobacco consumption. However, …

Work carried out by researchers from the Integrated Cancer Genomics Laboratory atthe Advanced Centre for Training, Research, and Education in Cancer (ACTREC) in Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre has shed more light on the molecular mechanism through which progesterone treatment prior to breast cancer surgery is quite likely to increase the …

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court announced that it would examine whether minor girls, as young as 15 years, can marry on the basis of custom or personal law when such marriages are considered an offence in statutory law. The legal age for marriage is 18 years for women and …

Israel’s Defence Minister signalled on Friday that the military would stop its air strikes if Palestinian militant groups halted rocket attacks, a day after the deadliest Israeli raid in decades raised the prospect of a major flare-up in fighting. The limited exchange of fire between Gaza militants and the Israeli …

Data show that India, with nearly 18% of the world’s population, occupies about 2.4% of the total geographical area and consumes 4% of total water resources. A World Bank report says that India is the largest groundwater user. A rapidly growing economy and population are straining the country’s groundwater resources. …

News from Davos and Delhi in the third week of January has framed the moral and intellectual crises affecting Indian economic policies. In the first instance, speaking at a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos on India’s road to a $10 trillion economy, the Chairman of Tata Sons …

In her first and customary Republic Day address to the nation, President Draupadi Murmu reiterated the founding ideals of the Republic on the eve of the 74th anniversary of the adoption of its Constitution. As the first tribal woman to occupy the highest office in the country, the 15th President …

India announced on Friday that it wants to modify the 62-year-old Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan, citing what it called Pakistan’s “intransigence” in resolving disputes over the Kishenganga and Ratle hydropower projects, both in Jammu and Kashmir. India also protested Pakistan’s “unilateral” decision to approach a court of arbitration …

Six million Jews were murdered in cold blood — a consequence of the worst form of government-sponsored antisemitism in Nazi-Germany. Today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), we remember those who became the victims of the unprecedented and systematic killings. Remembering the dead is our responsibility, and fighting against …

Indian technology services firms are currently encountering a ‘problem of plenty’ with staff and may lay off anywhere between 80,000 and 1,20,000 people over the next two quarters, as per HR sources. Google — whose products allow it access to industry insights and market visibility — announcing plans to lay …