The democracy that is functional around the world today — even as it has a long history of evolution — was essentially a 19th century to 20th century western creation. Every civilisation, of course, claims to have had some form of democratic origin. But the institution of universal adult franchise …
Read More »THE CONDUCT OF ELECTIONS IN INDIA
To begin with, elections divide voters into a dubious majority and a minority. The majority-minority division of 50% plus one and 50% minus one is, in principle, hardly a decisive mandate even as this is treated as one empirically. But the practice of elections belies even this notion of “majority”; …
Read More »DATA PROTECTION FOR MINORS
First, instead of incentivising online platforms to proactively build safer and better services for minors, the Bill relies on parents to grant consent on behalf of the child in all cases. In a country with low digital literacy, where parents in fact often rely on their children (who are digital …
Read More »INDIA CHAPTER FOR FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES
For a long time, proponents of the internationalisation of higher education have cherished the dream of foreign universities operating in India. For nearly two decades, they have emphasised the need to provide conducive conditions and an enabling framework for such institutions. But the idea failed to come to fruition due …
Read More »LAID-OFF INDIAN IT PROFESSIONALS FACE U.S. VISA DEADLINE
Thousands of Indian IT professionals in the U.S. who lost their jobs following a series of lay-offs at companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon are now struggling to find new employment within the period stipulated by their work visas to stay in the country. According to The Washington Post, …
Read More »MARY KOM-LED PANEL TO PROBE WRESTLERS’ CHARGES
Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Monday announced that six-time World champion and Olympic medallist boxer M.C. Mary Kom will head a government-appointed five-member Oversight Committee to investigate the charges levelled by some prominent wrestlers against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Olympic medallist wrestler Yogeshwar …
Read More »LEGAL TROUBLES ON PRESIDENT BIDEN
When his predecessor Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, was raided last August and a trove of thousands of government documents was discovered there, including several hundreds of classified papers, little would U.S. President Joe Biden have imagined that he would find himself in a similar sticky situation. Yet, Mr. …
Read More »2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ‘ELECTION INTEGRITY’
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is hosting the 2nd International Conference on the theme ‘Use of Technology and Elections Integrity’ at New Delhi on 23-24 January, 2023. ECI is leading the Cohort on Elections Integrity which was established as a follow up to the ‘Summit for Democracy’ held virtually in December, 2021. …
Read More »U.S. AND INDIA RELATIONS ON VISA
Promising to bring its visa staff across the U.S. Embassy and five consulates in India back up to full strength in the next few months, the U.S. on Sunday said it was launching a “surge” in staffing and a number of other measures to increase visa processing capacity across the …
Read More »INDIA’S UNIVERSITIES -WORLD’S ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
With India assuming the G20 presidency, it is now time for it to join the world’s academic community as a major player. Indians are well-known globally as top scientists and academics, university leaders, and key leaders in high tech, but little is known about the academic environment from which they …
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