TRUST Ravichandran Ashwin to slay criticism in a manner befitting a cavalier warrior. The off-spinner, who has scaled the prestigious Mt. 400 Test wickets peak, gave it back to the critics of the Ahmedabad Test match pitch in his own usual non-chalance by posing a teaser, “What is a good cricket surface?”. Ashwin’s poser should clear many prejudiced opinions about the Indian pitches whenever a visiting team is confounded by the spin on offer. This time it was the English team’s turn to face the heat...

THERE is good news from the economic front, with the economy getting poised for what the Ministry of Finance described as V-shaped growth in the quarter ending March 31, 2021. The economy has gotten out of recessionary phase that the nation endured for two successive quarters due to coronavirus pandemic. Now is the time of better health, better prospects, better times for all sectors of the economy, as the Government has asserted. It is necessary to analyse this development in the right perspective. ..

  Ahmedabad, February 24 (Agencies): President Ram Nath Kovind, on Wednesday, inaugurated the world’s largest cricket stadium and named it after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The cricket stadium is part of a massive sports complex -- traditionally known as Motera Sports Stadium -- already named after Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. World-class facilities for several sporting disciplines are being created in the complex as part of an ambitious programme that may prove to be a new symbol of ..

  THE three-tier framework created by the Centre to determine the contours of digital media, OTT platforms and news publishers is a much-needed step that must be hailed by the larger society. Though some voices have cropped up over tight Government leash on creative content showed on such platforms, especially the OTT medium, recent controversies on some web series clearly show why regulation is necessary to avert divide on caste as well as religious lines.  The guidelines also take ..

INDIA-SRI-LANKA relations under the presidency of Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be interesting to follow. It may be recalled that when Gotabaya became the President of Sri Lanka in November, 2019, there was palpable unease in the South Block. Both he and his brother Mahinda (former President and present Prime Minister) are known for their pro-China leaning. Gotabaya had openly declared his intention to undo the pro-democracy reforms made by former President Maithripala Sirisena and introduce the presidential ..

THANKS to solicitous response from the Daga family, the famed Kasturchand Park has got back the marble statue of (the late) Sir Kasturchand Daga. That had become necessary as the old statue, standing at the north-eastern tip of the Kasturchand Park had come down when a massive tree-branch crashed upon it a few months ago. The family took upon itself the task of making of a new statue of one of Nagpur’s most celebrated sons -- giving back the place its old glory. This resurrection of a historic landmark ..

THERE is a huge tectonic place below the land mass of India known as “Indian Plate.” The rotation of the Earth is causing this plate to continually move northward just like any matter moves to the top in a centrifugal machine. The Indian Plate crashes into the Tibetan Plate as it moves to the north. The pressure between these two plates is leading to the continual rise of the Himalayas a..

THE Election Commission of India (ECI) has done well to explain to the people that its decision to deploy Central Police Forces in poll-bound West Bengal is a routine exercise -- which is carried out in all States that go to polls. This explanation has its own importance against the background of the complaint from the ruling Trinamool Congress that the Centre was trying to brow-beat the electoral process through deployment of Central Police Forces. It is unfortunate that Trinamool Congress and ..

PRIME Minister Mr. Narendra Modi went full distance at a webinar to explain India’s current philosophy about total self-reliance defence production. He expressed his grief that a country that can send a spacecraft to the Mars cannot make weapons for itself and become self-reliant. But this is being changed and the country is engaged in a massive programme of achieving self-reliance in defence production, he insisted, thus underlining the change of tide in a critical national sector. The Prime Minister ..

IT’S NOT funny when people die of the cold, but there was some innocent amusement to be had from the indignation of Texans unable to boil their drinking water during the Big Freeze because the power was still out. Things like that are not supposed to happen in a modern, developed country like the US of A. How dare they? Others, aware that Texas has cut every corner in the public services that it’s possible to cut, were unsurprised by the five-day mini-disaster that struck the country’s second-biggest ..

THROUGH the judgement of the case – Kotak Mahindra Bank Pvt. Ltd. v. Ambuj A. Kasliwal and Others , delivered on February 16, 2021, a 3 -judge bench of the Supreme Court consisting of the Chief Justice Sharad A Bobde, Justice A S Bopanna and Justice V Ramasubramanian, has made it clear that total waiver of pre-deposit rule in filing appeals before the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal (DRAT) is not permissible. The short issue before the Supreme Court for consideration was with regard to the correctness ..

THE recent glacial lake burst in the ecologically sensitive Chamoli region of Uttarakhand is a grim reminder of the rapid environmental degradation we are going through and the disasters that loom large before us for want of proper planning and assessment of the potential hazards of human development and proliferation in vulnerable zones. The latest tragedy is only one in a series of suc..

OF COURSE, coronavirus had never been defeated. It was all the time there once it entered our lives about a year ago. But then came the massive national and international effort to fight it back. Various social, health and other measures were put in place with utmost care. A global research effort produced good enough vaccines, too, as a necessary step to combat the dangerous menace that claimed crores of lives across the world. And the world heaved a sigh of relief! -- under the impression that coronaviru..

DUBAI can be amusing, in a voyeuristic way, for a week or two. Tallest building in the world and the mall with the shark tank, but it’s the people, really. There are a quarter-million expats, mostly British or American, living much higher on the hog than they ever could at home – but bored out of their minds, like refugees from a Somerset Maugham novel. Drunken buffet lunches on Fridays at one of the big hotels are as good as it gets. Offstage, there are also a couple of million servants, menials ..

THE Myanmar military that staged a coup early this month and ousted popular leader Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, is busy finding newer ways to hold her in prison as long as possible. It has slapped new charges on the leader and almost ensured that it can keep her behind bars for indefinite period. This is how military often behaves when it dabbles into politics -- which is a universal experience. The charges that had been slapped against Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi earlier, too, were frivolous, to say the least. ..

THE Central Government has almost succeeded in busting the myth that the current protests going on near New Delhi is not an agitation by genuine farmers. The central agencies have gathered enough evidence to prove that the protests are nothing but actually a well-organised political racket stemming from international conspiracy. No matter the bravado by the leaders of the protesting mobs, it is almost clear to everybody that in due course of time, the agitation would melt -- in the absence of substan..

THE self-esteem of two-year-olds and nation-states is too fragile for them to admit they were wrong, which makes it hard for them to move on from blunders. That’s why the toys don’t get picked up and the broken treaties don’t get fixed, and why there may be a tantrum (in the case of two-year-olds) or a nuclear war (in the case of the United States and Iran) the latter contingency is implausible, but there is a bipartisan effort in the United States to make it more likely. Until a few weeks ago it ..

FORMER United States President Mr. Donald Trump scraped through his impeachment trial in the US Senate because the impeachment lobby could not muster enough numbers on the floor of the House. Though a massive ignominy was averted, the world knows that Mr. Trump had made himself vulnerable to some punitive action, thanks to his statements and conduct. The current Senate acquittal came on one count -- that Mr. Trump had instigated his supporters to mount an ..

UNION Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah’s candid statement in the Parliament that Jammu and Kashmir would be given statehood at an appropriate time, demonstrated the Government’s open mind on the issue. If the Kashmir region returns to complete normalcy, the Centre may not mind restoring statehood to Jammu and Kashmir, Mr. Shah stated. However, as he explained the details of the successful moves by the Centre in Kashmir, Mr. Shah indicated that much work needs to be in the region ..

A PREMIER batsman with all boxes ticked to qualify as a permanent resident of any team for the longer format is subjected to intense scrutiny as a matter of habit after even a minor blip. And he rises from the criticism in his own style, throwing another solid one at his detractors to keep them quiet and at the same time wonder at his potential. Rohit Sharma has been playing the act for years together despite six centuries in his kitty apart from some brilliantly-constructed innings for the team’s ..

THE boy had his little bicycle. But it broke -- beyond repair, so to say. So, his parents bought for him another, taller and stronger, bicycle, simply because the boy, too, had grown taller and stronger in the past couple of years. And, how can a boy -- or a girl -- survive without a bicycle of his own? So, a decent sum was spent to acquire a brand-new bicycle for the little one --who did not waste even half a minute in riding off on it even when it was well after evening and the colony had nearly ..

   UNION IT Minister Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad’s chagrin towards social media platforms is pretty much understandable after the growing misuse of these mediums to spread fake news and unsubstantiated videos. The Centre has flagged several issues to microblogging site Twitter and platforms like the Facebook for their misuse by certain elements to spread fake news and incite violence. While Twitter has put up a lame defence of users exercising freedom of expression, Mr. ..

PRIME Minister Mr. Narendra Modi’s idea of climate justice to fight the climate change is borne out of the Indian philosophy of treating nature as a benevolent mother. Health of people and health of their surroundings are two intricately connected issues which now need to become a cohesive idea for humanity for evolvement of the concept of climate justice. Mr. Modi has, in effect, exhorted the international as well as local society to take it as their individual duty to fight the climate change. India ..

THAT the Armies of India and China have begun the slow, synchronised, calibrated process of disengagement from the north bank of the Pangong lake and parts of eastern Ladakh, is certainly a noteworthy development. Beijing was the first to talk about it, while New Delhi chose to remain silent for 24 more hours. Then came the word from Defence Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh in the Parliament stating that disengagement has begun. This time-gap between the two statements has its own significance in the handling ..

THE United Nations Development Programme studied the agricultural taxation in four developing countries. They found that agriculture has been subject to Income Tax like other sectors in Kenya since 2018. Previously, Income Tax was payable on agriculture on incomes above US Dollars 600 per year. This limit has now been reduced to US Dollars 108 or about Rs one lakh per year. Agriculture is similarly subjected to Income Tax like other taxpayers in Cameroon though it is not actually collected. The Agriculture ..

BLASTING some sections of the media for spreading rumours, Union Minister Of Information and Broadcasting Mr. Prakash Javdekar has insisted that that did not represent the concept of freedom of press. Citing the example of how one journalist portrayed the death by accident of one protesting farmer as death by a police bullet, Mr. Javdekar suggested that such an approach meant abuse of the freedom the media has in India. This is not the first time that somebody respon..

THE Himalayan tragedy that unfolded in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand after a portion of the Nanda Devi glacier came-off to trigger an avalanche has brought back the horrific memories of the 2013 deluge in the State. Over 5,000 people had been killed in that disaster while more than three lakh were trapped in the valleys leading to the Char Dham pilgrimage sites. Bodies from that tragedy are still being recovered near Kedarnath. Now, the Chamoli tragedy is another warning signal to humans that ..

HIS smiling face and boyish looks capably mask the ferocity that Joe Root’s batting unleashes in an elegant manner. An unending hunger drives his run-machine as India found out in a profound manner in Chennai when the England captain effectively shut the victory door for the hosts with a gritty and masterly double hundred. The first Test will now head either to an English victory or a draw but before the end result comes Root has marked a place for himself among the modern day batting greats...

THE decision of the Central Government to lift curbs on High Speed Mobile Services in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) exactly one and a half years after the abrogation of Special Status to the region has come in at a right time when things were settling down there. The J&K administration has thanked the Centre for the development that would bring solace to young generations in the Union Territory...

THE open and forceful assertion by the United States embassy in New Delhi to the Government’s efforts to resolve the current impasse over farmers’ protests comes at a very right moment when vested interests are trying conspiratorially to drum up ill-informed support to the agitating farmers by so-called foreign celebrities. The American embassy has said in a clear-worded statement that it favours dialogue between the Government (of India) and the farmers. The embassy statement also recognises that ..

THE biggest ever indigenous defence procurement programme, kickstarted with the Rs 48,000 crore deal to buy 83 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, is the new path that India is seeking to follow to shore up its defence. A contract was signed with State-run aerospace behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the single-engine but highly agile multi-role supersonic aircraft to pave way for home production of defence equipment needed by the Armed Forces. Defence ..

BY EXPRESSING its concern over China’s habitual intimidation of neighbouring countries, the United States has picked up a serious issue right at the start of the regime of President of Mr. Joe Biden. This is a continuing concern the White House has felt under different administrations over the past some years. It is obvious Mr. Biden, too, will continue to hold China as sort of a regional bully and shape the American foreign policy accordingly. In the international realpolitk, this carries its own ..

MYANMAR’S planned tryst with democracy came to an early end after the country’s military detained senior politicians including State Counselor Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and President Mr. Win Myint and seized power. A coup d’etat, third in Myanmar’s political history, was on cards once the political class and the Election Commission started ignoring the military’s allegations of an electoral fraud in last year’s general elections. The timing and audacity of the military junta, also called as Tatmadaw, to ..

WITH the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States, America is closing one of the darkest and saddest chapters in its history and opening a new one filled with hope and optimism. The swearing-in of the former Vice President and Senator heralds a new dawn not just in the United States but the world as well. The destructive nature of Trump’s presidency has been well-documented by the US and international media. To name just a few of his transgressions during the four years ..

“Conversation”. THIS word has its own fascination! And it offers countless possibilities of interpretation. “Conversation”, actually, is one word that has defined human progress in the most profound manner. Whatever the word indicates, in reality, forms the core of human togetherness. The human community holds itself together -- through thick and thin, through light and darkness, through rough and tumble of life and its uncertainties and impossibilities and improbabilities and implausibilities -- ..

BACK from a rigorous examination of nerves, skill and mental fortitude, Team India is ready for another enticing challenge at home. Their triumph in Australia under excruciating conditions is yet to sink in but there is no time for a lull as the next opponent – England – is as good as they come. The four-Test series, starting this week in Chennai, is set to be another battle of equals. Th..

INDIA’S fall of six places to 86th among 180 countries in a Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is a reminder to the entire society that rooting out corruption is still a distant dream in the country...

  REMOVAL of curbs on domestic travel, cinema halls and similar other relaxations by the Central Government are happy pointers of the COVID-19 situation in the country scaling down to manageable levels. While the Centre has asked the States and Union Territories to maintain surveillance and follow containment measures, the fact remains that substantial gains have been achieved against spread of the virus.  Declining number of people testing positive for the virus and normal life beginning ..

All China’s leaders since the Communist victory in 1949 have claimed that Taiwan is a renegade province of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), not a separate country. Most of them did nothing about it, because in the early days the US Navy controlled the Pacific Ocean right up to the Chinese low-tide mark, but President Xi Jin-ping has made Taiwan his legacy project.MOST news agencies reported on Sunday that China sent large groups of fighters and bombers into the Taiwanese airspace ..

  BLIND faith is often the sole reason for a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. And when faith in spirituality turns into a dangerous belief in supernatural powers then the end has to be absolutely gory. The bizarre incident reported from Andhra Pradesh confirms the shocking fact. Apparently “transcending the peaks of spiritualism” a highly educated couple bludgeoned their two young daughters to death with a belief that they would come back to life within hours as spiritual ..

THE first budget of the Narendra Modi Government in a period of pandemic is being presented on February 1 this year. Hardly ten days are left. The pandemic and lock down battered Indian economy is looking for a recipe which should be of relief to those who have been most affected and still distressed during the present fiscal. They are primarily, the jobless, young entrants to the employment market, small businessmen and unorganised workers including rural poor. The young people in the country ..

IN THE judgement of the case – Haryana Space Application Centre (HARSAC) & Another v. M/s Pan India Consultants Pvt. Ltd. delivered on January 20, 2021, Justices L. Nageswara Rao, Indu Malhotra and Ajay Rastogi have held at the Supreme Court that section 12(5) read with the Seventh Schedule of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is mandatory and non-derogable (non-repealable) provision. In the facts of the present case, the Principal Secretary to the Government of Haryana has been held ineligible ..

  By NITYA CHAKRABORTYPRESIDENT Joe Biden has given a great start to his four year tenure as the head of the United States of America by announcing a massive programme which not only rolls back some of the racial and anti-people policies of the Trump regime, but also includes a few pro-people policies which are of immediate importance to the common American people.For the underprivileged Americans, the Biden announcement of more relief to the unemployed along with the $ 1400 stimulus as ..

  STICKING to its image of a ‘friend in need’, India has started sending domestically developed vaccine shipments to the immediate neighbourhood as per the ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. Vaccines have started arriving Maldives, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Next in line to receive the doses are Myanmar and Seychelles. In the meanwhile, 92 countries have approached India for the COVID-19 vaccines further bolstering credentials of the Indian jab with transcontinental ..

WHEN Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to Moscow on Sunday after convalescing in Germany from an attempted poisoning by the FSB domestic spy agency, the regime-friendly media loyally failed to mention his arrival. With one striking exception: ‘Vremya,’ the flagship news show of Russian State television. Presumably somebody there was hoping to win favour with the Kremlin, because they briefly mentioned Navalny three-quarters of the way through Sunday’s two-hour program..

OFTEN a thing of public ridicule, the heavy subsidy on food served in Parliament canteens for Members of Parliament has finally been stopped by the Lok Sabha Secretariat. The move will help in saving of an estimated Rs 8 crore annually. The decision is most welcome, for, it finally fulfills a long-standing demand of the public of ending unnecessary special favours to the country’s lawmakers. In the age of digital media, the Parliament canteen menu card was among the most trolled subjects by the general ..

WITH the world’s biggest immunisation off the blocks in a spectacular fashion with the first shots of two COVID vaccines to the healthcare and frontline workers across India, the focus now shifts to the monitoring and precautionary measures to ascertain efficacy of the shots. Apprehensions over the first dose of vaccine and the fear of adverse events have already started gathering pace among the populace. Two deaths in separate parts of the country, too, were attributed to the coronavirus vaccine ..

BACK when the election was tightening and just a week away, US President-elect Joe Biden went big. He flew to Warm Springs, the Georgia town whose thermal waters once brought Franklin Delano Roosevelt comfort from polio, and pledged a restitching of America’s economic and policy fabric unseen since FDR’s New Deal. Evoking some of the nation’s loftiest reforms helped Biden unseat United States President Donald Trump but left him with towering promises to keep. And he’ll be tryi..

AS THE debate over censoring the content on offer on Over The Top (OTT) platforms goes on in the country, another controversy has erupted over depiction of deities in a web series. Some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have demanded ban on Amazon Prime Video’s new series ‘Tandav’ for allegedly mocking Hindu deities. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has taken note of the complaint and will act accordingly but the issue yet again raises the need of controlling the..

HOURS before his inauguration as the President of the United States of America, Mr. Joe Biden has embarked upon a tedious exercise of undoing the legacy of outgoing POTUS Mr. Donald Trump. The President-elect has announced a masterplan for first 10 days in office with focus on economy, healthcare and immigration. The plan aims to reboot the US as Mr. Biden and his Democrat colleagues seek to “unTrump” the country and “reverse the gravest damages of the Trump administration.” Going by th..