The Union government is all set to ease grant of citizenship to members of six minority communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh whose passports and visas have ceased to be valid during their stay in India. The Home Ministry is expected to revamp the citizenship portal to accept passports and …
Read More »RESETTLEMENT AND REHABILITATION POLICY
Tamil Nadu government is yet to finalise its resettlement and rehabilitation (RnR) policy even after 14 months have passed since its draft version was released to invite feedback from stakeholders. The policy draft, released in October 2021 by the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB), focused on laying down …
Read More »BREAST CANCER MATTER OF ‘NATIONAL’ OR ‘EXTREME’ URGENCY
Breast cancer, by the government’s estimate, is the leading cause of cancer in women in India. However, it does not qualify as a matter of “national” or “extreme” urgency in the Health Ministry’s reckoning, suggest court filings as part of an ongoing case in the Kerala High Court. The case …
Read More »SUPREME COURT’S ROLE AS PROTECTOR OF CITIZENS’ RIGHTS
Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud has said the very purpose of the Supreme Court is to hear every little cry for personal liberty and protection of the Fundamental Rights. But pendency is a perennial drawback that affects the court’s role as the timely protector of citizens’ rights. Law Minister …
Read More »GODAVARI-KRISHNA-CAUVERY LINK
Tamil Nadu has reiterated its demand to shift the terminal point of the proposed Godavari-Krishna-Pennar-Palar-Cauvery link from the Grand Anicut to Kattalai barrage. Reiterating this at a meeting of a Special Committee on Interlinking of Rivers in New Delhi earlier this week, Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan argued that the change …
Read More »JAPAN DEFENCE POLICY TO CHINA THREAT
Japan’s government approved a major defence policy overhaul on Friday, including a significant spending hike, as it warned China poses the “greatest strategic challenge ever” to its security. In its largest defence shake-up in decades, Japan vowed to increase security spending to 2% of GDP by 2027, reshape its military …
Read More »COUNTERTERRORISM COOPERATION
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s listing of four hurdles to better counterterrorism cooperation, i.e., state support for financing terror; multilateral mechanisms that are opaque and agenda driven; double standards and politicisation of countering terrorism according to where terror groups belong, and the “next frontier” (the use of emerging technologies such …
Read More »U.S. CREATED INDO-PACIFIC CONCEPT TO CONTAIN CHINA’
There “is no such concept as Indo-Pacific” which was “created by the United States” to bring in partners such as India to “contain” China, a Chinese diplomat has said, reflecting Beijing’s hardening opposition to both Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy as well as regional groupings such as the Quad. “In fact, there …
Read More »KERALA’S UNIVERSITY LAWS (AMENDMENT) BILLS
The Kerala government has passed the two University Laws (amendment) Bills in the State Assembly to amend laws relating to the governance of State universities and to remove Governor Arif Mohammed Khan as the Chancellor of said universities. What do the Bills say? The proposed legislations will amend the statutes …
Read More »PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERVENTION
The President of India, DraupadiMurmu, and the Vice-President of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, have weighed in on the surpassing significance of the separation of powers in the Indian Constitution. However, both did so in different ways, in substance and style. Wise counsel In her valedictory address on November 26 to the …
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