The attitudinal indifference to tiger conservation has been witnessed repeatedly. The Madhya Pradesh government cleared the proposal for the expansion of NH 7, which cuts through the critical Kanha-Pench corridor, threatening tiger reserves, writes Prerna Singh Bindra.
On the Mount Rushmore of Indian nationalist iconography, we can expect to see, as we pass by in an aeroplane, Gandhi’s and Nehru’s faces carved into the stone. The third face is a blur — but the myopic likeness is of course Ambedkar’s. The fourth visage just may be Tagore’s, writes Amit Chaudhuri.
Finland thinks third party mediation can solve Kashmir. Let’s talk about this over reindeer steak in Helsinki.
In 2002, 60,000 poor people were asked to identify the main hurdle to their advancement. Above even food or education. the number one need identified was to have a ‘voice’ of their own, writes KumKum Dasgupta.
A caste-based census is not a good idea at present. But it can be debated rationally.
Food security is currently being much discussed in the context of the proposed National Food Security Bill. Food security is the consistent access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food so that the basic dietary needs are met to ensure an individual can lead a healthy life, writes Sujata Kelkar Shetty.
Narco-analysis and lie-detector tests are unscientific. They’re no substitute for proper evidence-gathering, writes
Ajai Sahni.
India, a Babel of tongues, will soon get a Museum of the Word. And not a moment too soon, writes Pratik Kanjilal.
The ongoing Maoist insurgency is no more than a response to this ‘state of generalised exception’ and the political economy it is violently seeking to reconstitute, writes Pothik Ghosh.
Krishna’s ongoing visit will be extremely important in this context of determining future bilateral ties — not according to international opinion, but according to how India and China minimise their differences and work on their commonalities, writes Ravni Thakur.
Obama remains convinced that nuclear terrorism poses the most immediate global security threat and needs urgent initiatives. This makes N-terrorism his top priority, opening new vistas for strengthening the Indo-US partnership, writes Swaran Singh.
To say that states don’t have money to feed their poor children is a fallacy. It is just that no one seems to have the time or imagination to channelise the resources in the right direction, writes
Manoj Kumar.
The debate on Bt brinjal promises greater transparency in the GM food industry and Jairam Ramesh has taken the first step towards it by making the debate itself transparent, writes Pratik Kanjilal.
A chief of staff despised by the bureaucracy is bound to kill the NSA’s office, no matter how brilliant the man at the top is, writes Raja Menon.
The Obama administration holds Beijing responsible for many of its problems, including the US’s jobless recovery. Great power rivalry is back, writes Pramit Pal Chaudhuri.