THIS weekend, there are events in Germany commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the pages of the press, prominent persons—from former US Secretary of State James ABaker to current German Chancellor Angela Merkel to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev—are all weighing in with their commentaries on the significance of November 9, 1989, all celebrating to a greater or lesser degree the demise of the former socialist state in the East...

AFTER the disturbing discovery of an Israel-based company’s spyware snooping on private WhatsApp conversations of 1,400 select users globally there have been frantic efforts to opt for secure chat apps to maintain privacy. The Pegasus spyware, a product of Israel’s NSO group, has stirred the Hornet’s Nest by accessing private chats of select industrialists, leaders, journalists and rights activists which is perceived to be used against them by enforcement agencies. The Government of India has sought ..

THE interfaith meeting of leaders of various sects and communities convened by National Security Advisor (NSA) Mr. Ajit Doval is one of the outward expressions of the silent and enduring effort the Government has been making not for just a few months but for a stretch of 4-5 years since 2014. The most endearing feature of the meeting was that there was no dichotomy between its stated and unstated purposes, in the sense it had no hidden agenda that had to be worked out on the sly...

THE Indian nation deserves salutes for its very mature handling of the post-verdict situation in the Ayodhya case. The entire experience was one of an effort to maintain peace and harmony in the larger Indian society that was confronted with the verdict whose nature nobody knew until 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 9, 2019. Anticipated fears dominated the collective thought as the administration prepared itself for the worst of eventualities...

IN THE judgement of the case – Principal Commissioner of Income Tax (Central) -1 v. NRA Iron & Steel Pvt. Ltd., delivered on October 25, 2019, Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Indu Malhotra, at the Supreme Court, have, while dismissing the application by the respondent-Company for Re-call of the judgement of March 5, 2019, held that it has failed to make out any credible or cogent ground in support of the relief sought by it. ..

MEETING those two men was an altogether different -- and new -- experience. They sat at a table sipping coffee whose aroma was filling the air in the small restaurant. They appeared different -- and of course young and energetic and very strong, with broad shoulders, drawn up chests, solid arms, broad smiles, as if their worlds had no problems, as if their lives were without challenges or as if they had mastered all the challenges. Drawn towards them by their personae, I approached them as I had enough ..

 New Delhi, November 7 (PTI): Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on Thursday, reviewed the state of the economy, including stress in the financial sector, at the meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC), the apex body of sectoral regulators, headed by the Finance Minister.The 21st meeting of FSDC comes against the backdrop of the economy hitting a six-year low growth rate of 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2019-20. Even some of the macroeconomic data for the second ..

THE most heartening development around the impending verdict in the Ramjanmabhoomi suit is the willing participation of the Hindu and Muslim communities in creating an atmosphere in favour of peace in the post-verdict period. Leaders of both the communities -- political or apolitical -- are issuing appeals for peace as an essential condition that the larger society must maintain, no matter the outcome of the legal case. ..

BEFORE returning to New Delhi recently after attending the annual IMF-World fall meeting, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman provided an upbeat perspective on the Indian economy. She asserted that its fundamentals are strong and attributed the majority of the problems ailing the Indian economy to a global slowdown. In the same time period, the World Bank announced that India had jumped 14 spots from 77th to 63rd on its Ease of Doing Business ranking. Together, these indicators might suggest that ..

The city of Nagpur is abuzz with talk of positioning the four cannons unearthed from the grounds of Kasturchand Park, or placing two Vijayanta Main Battle Tanks there with a twin utility -- of attracting people to see the the weapons of war, and also add some decoration to the sprawling open space of historic importance. The city boasts of some such weapons of war having been positioned at a few places -- like the Battle Tank near Rajiv Gandhi’s statue at Ajni Square, like shell of fighter aircraft ..

UK has been the biggest export destination for India among member countries. WITH Brexit becoming reality after January 2020, a new dimension in UK-India economic relation will set off. It will throw new challenges to deepen the relation with UK, after its exclusion from EU. There are two areas, which will open opportunities to rebuild the economic relation with UK. One, it is the economic relation with UK as a single country. Second, the relation with EU, where UK has played an harbor for India. ..

FOR the millions of hockey fans in the country there is a good news. Both the men and women teams have booked their tickets to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The fifth-place Indian boys’ team ensured their entry to the Olympic Games by thrashing the Russians in the two-legged FIH Qualifiers and so did the women’s team by overcoming the United States of America 6-5 aggregate score, though they had lost 1-4 in the second leg in the Qualifier played in Bhubaneswar. Both the teams, men and women, have ..

THERE once lived a wealthy man who was bothered by severe eye pain. He consulted many physicians, but none could treat his ache. He went through a myriad of treatment procedures but his pain persisted with more vigor. He looked for every available solution for his pain, and approached a wise monk, renowned for treating various illnesses. The monk carefully observed the man’s eyes and offered a very peculiar solution...

DESPITE the mushrooming digital and social media, newspaper continues to hold onto its own. It is said that a newspaper is the first draft of history. So earning a place in the form of news here is a matter of great pride for any achiever. It immortalises his deed by mentioning it in black and white. There is however a space in the newspaper that signifies the mortal reality of human existence...

RAGING forest fires in the United States and Australia, unprecedented rains in several parts of India, sea waters entering populated areas, icebergs melting rapidly, colossal loss of property and life due to devastating oceanic storms. What all these natural disasters are signs of? For the scientific community there is only one answer: global warming. A research paper-based report in the New York Times has predicted that like most coastal cities and towns much of Mumbai is under the grave risk of ..

VERY rarely do such developments take place such as splitting of a State into Union Territories. And the Government must have agonised a great deal before deciding to split the State of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories. There are reasons to believe firmly that the decision came when the Government concluded that it had no option as effective as this one. There also are reasons to believe that these two smaller entities under a different constitutional arrangement than before will add strength ..

THE Director of Geological Survey of India (GSI) Mr. Sandip Som has a very disconcerting news for Kolkata as well as for several parts of the country. According to Dr. Som the Salt Lake area and other parts of Kolkata city are sinking at a very rapid pace each year. He has cited depletion of ground water and tectonic movement,, besides global warming as some of the reasons. Of these global warming and depletion of ground water should be a warning. Unfortunately there is little awareness about this. ..

THERE should be no doubt about the great power the Indian Army packed in its latest punch delivered straight on Pakistan’s face on October 20 (Sunday) when it eliminated at least 35 militants plus 8-10 Pakistani soldiers in artillery fire on 3-4 terror launch pads in Occupied Kashmir. The special merit of this strike was that it was a real-time hit back by the Indian Army in response to Pakistani shelling, when the political leadership could not be contacted for a green signal to mount a well-modulated ..

WEST Indian great Brian Lara is all praise for the current Indian pace battery and says that he is reminded of the West Indies greats of the 80s and 90s when they dominated world cricket. Indeed that is a great tribute to the Indian pace bowling attack which is being hailed all over the cricketing world. These bowlers not only have the speed but also have mastered various nuances of fast bowling, essential for purchasing sumptuous results. There is no denying that current pace asset makes Indian team ..

IN THE midst of the common societal concern about helping our youngsters acquire good health, good hygiene and good habits and keeping them away from addictions and afflictions of various kinds, some examples shine out and shout for attention and appreciation. These examples involving youngsters -- mostly in their teen years -- are so wonderful and energising that they make you feel good about our youths. This may be a lopsided picture, so to say, since only a minority of youngsters is represented ..

Varanasi, October 17 (PTI): Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Thursday, said that had it not been for Swatantryaveer Savarkar, the First War of Independence in 1857 would have been regarded as a revolt. In that case, India would have seen that part of history from the British point of view.   These remarks came two days after the Maharashtra unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party said in its election manifesto that it would ask the Centre to confer the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest ..

FROM his own will to break for duty with armed forces to injury lay-off and indecisiveness on calling it quits, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s future with Indian limited overs team has remained a topic of guesswork since the World Cup sojourn in England. Not many were forthcoming on making a direct comment, neither the selectors nor the administrators. All that will be put to rest soon, as early as on October 24, with BCCI President-elect Sourav Ganguly taking a call on the intriguing issue in his own imperious ..

THE criticism notwithstanding that India is not doing well on the economic front, the World Bank has good news to share -- that India has halved its poverty rate since 1990s, and is on the way to eliminating extreme poverty in a decade from now. No matter the criticism of certain policies of the Government -- by anybody -- factually enough indicators are available to conclude that on the economic front in a tickling condition, India has done well consistently. That is the reason the World Bank noted ..

IN MIDWAY in his last Test in 2008, skipper MS Dhoni asked the retiring Sourav Ganguly to don the captain’s hat. A perplexed Dada, an astute skipper himself, took over, marshalled the bowlers for a few overs before handing it back to Dhoni. A déjà vu is in the offing for Ganguly as he occupies the most prestigious seat of BCCI President in a few days from now. In a late night drama, he was handed over the mantle by the ‘old guards’ in the Board, something that will stick to Ganguly’s short tenure ..

THE fundamental issue raised by Professor Abhijit Banerjee, the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics seems to relate to what many thinkers have touched upon over time, like Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohiya -- controlling or regulating socio-cultural consumption imperatives of people with no resource. Now that Prof. Banerjee, his wife Ms. Esther Duflo, and Professor Michael Kremer have won a joint Economics Nobel, there will be a more pointed discourse on ..

AFTER a hiatus of almost two years, a period that saw Indian cricket unearthing a precocious wicketkeeping talent in Rishabh Pant, Wriddhiman Saha has come back to end the debate for India’s number one wicketkeeper. The encomiums he invited from captain Virat Kohli who termed Saha as the “best wicket keeper in the world at the moment” were not misplaced as the diminutive Bengal player showed in the Pune Test. ..

The salary earned by compassionate appointee cannot be deducted from the compensation which the claimant is entitled to under the Act. However, it was made clear that the salary which flowed from the compassionate appointment that was provided by the tort-feasor was liable to be deducted if the employer was the owner of the offending vehicle and thus liable to pay compensation under the Act...

TIME has come for all of us to help our youngsters to return to basics like good health, good hygiene, good habits. In an atmosphere where technology -- the digital technology at that -- is taking a vice-like grip of our lives, it is becoming our prime duty to see that our youths stay on the right track so that they get ample opportunity to mould their lives in the most desirable manner in terms of good living. And that will be possible necessarily if the youths stick to principles of good health-hygiene-h..

  FINALLY, the Committee of Administrators appointed by the Supreme Court to oversee affairs in the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI) has cracked its whip and debarred eight state units from attending the October 23 annual general meeting and elections. This action was on cards and needs further stringent legal follow-up to overthrow the adamant administrators in all those state units which have refused to implement the Justice Lodha Committee reforms. By ignoring the Supreme Court verdict on ..

THE newly appointed Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva has warned of a global slowdown in 90 pc of the countries of the world in 2019, what she terms as a ‘synchronised slowdown.’ While, there are already indications of ‘softening’ of growth in advanced countries like the US, Japan and Eurozone, developing countries like India and Brazil have also been caught in this spiral of slowing growth. India’s growth has already contracted from a high of 7 pc and ..

THE informal summit between Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and Chinese President Mr. Xi Jinping in Mamallapuram from October 11 to 12 will be one of the most important bilateral events of the year for both the countries. Since the first such meeting in Wuhan in April 2018, both the Asian powers have marched on in their own aggressive ways to become focal points in international geopolitics. The Mamallapuram summit provides both India and China a wonderful opportunity to further the spirit of Wuhan ..

TWO types of frauds are taking place in our banks. One fraud takes place with the connivance of bank officials. The Punjab Maharashtra Cooperative Bank knowingly gave loans to a company named HDIL even though they knew that the borrower was in deep financial trouble. They hid these “bad” loans from the RBI by shifting them to about 21,000 small bank accounts. Similarly, the Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank extended loans to insolvent sugar mills apparently under the prodding of its Director. The ..

Visiting the place a day after offers a great insight into not just an ongoing phenomenon of social transformation but also into a project of pride for the city of Nagpur as a global centre of awakening. From any point in the vast sprawl filled by countless thousands of devotees, the graceful dome of Deekshabhoomi towers over the landscape. Though now under repairs, its majestic persona dominates the physical scene as well as mental horizon. Devotees move around, throng the shrine, gather at various ..

THE upcoming by-elections assume special significance given the record number of 51 Assembly seats across 16 States and one Union Territory going to polls around the same time...

 THE unique geostrategic position that India has in the India Ocean region gives it some wonderful natural advantages. Despite the geographical advantages, its size and its track record, India is still lacking in several areas. Recent times have, however, witnessed a strategic shift in India’s Indian Ocean Policy with larger engagement with countries sharing the vast shores.  It was an imperative that Indian diplomatic channels needed to implement in the right earnest with incremental ..