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editorials

PAGE 8

A flawed and regressive bill

Published on Mar 25, 2026 15:20 IST
If there is anything to learn from our own ground reality, it is that plurality and not binariness lies at the heart of gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

Caste and the Indian reality of exclusion

Caste is an Indic social institution that transcends religion. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it has percolated into Christianity and Islam, as practised in India, and the conversion of faith hardly sets free an individual from a regressive social order defined by graded inequality. (HT Archive)
Published on Mar 24, 2026 14:39 IST

Fast-tracking the women’s quota

The widely reported (but, as yet, unconfirmed) plan is to pass an amendment increasing the size of the Lok Sabha and legislatures by 50% and use a lottery to identify the seats to be reserved for women. (ANI)
Published on Mar 24, 2026 14:39 IST

Prospect of truce in West Asia

There is a widespread consensus that the economic after-effects of the war are not going away anytime soon. The biggest reason for this is the damage to energy infrastructure in West Asia and the time required to reboot the shut production facilities. (AFP)
Updated on Mar 23, 2026 15:56 IST

Wake-up call for the collegium

If the collegium system has to fulfil its original mandate, it has to be more robust in pushing for transparency in its decisions (HT Archive)
Published on Mar 22, 2026 14:58 IST

Cost of the war in West Asia

The damage to production facilities will take significantly more time and money to restore after the war has ended or traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has been restored. We are talking years and billions of dollars here. (Reuters)
Published on Mar 20, 2026 15:25 IST

Giving wings to passenger rights

Given that the Indian civil aviation space is a near duopoly — with IndiGo and Air India accounting for the bulk of the market — such regulatory intervention also signals an attempt to discipline the key players that are setting the tone for the others. (Reuters)
Updated on Mar 19, 2026 15:25 IST

Put the fire out before it singes

A petition has been filed in the Delhi High Court, but the administration must not wait for the court’s intervention. Law enforcement and ensuring social peace is its responsibility, and it must do its job — and be seen to be doing so — fairly and transparently. (Shutterstock)
Updated on Mar 18, 2026 15:44 IST

When hospitals become fire hazards

The 2019 decision to upgrade the hospital into a “world-class, AIIMS-plus” facility would seem the right prescription — only if implementation had matched ambition. (PTI)
Published on Mar 17, 2026 15:09 IST

Old mistakes, new defeats

In Bihar, personal conflict between the two biggest leaders of the Opposition hamstrung its campaign, leading to another drubbing. (HT Archive)
Updated on Mar 17, 2026 15:09 IST

When cinema begins to anticipate reality

The moral universe of One Battle is anti-authoritarian, but it stops short of endorsing the radical alternative available in the film. (AFP)
Published on Mar 16, 2026 14:52 IST

Everybody’s political icon

The political resurrection of Kanshi Ram, who died in 2006, and his eulogisation as a trans party icon have to do with the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh (UP), due next year. (Deepak Gupta/HT Photo)
Updated on Mar 16, 2026 14:52 IST

Desire in Vladimir, and a darkness within

Why should women’s desire exist as a means to an end, whatever the latter be? (REUTERS)
Published on Mar 15, 2026 17:02 IST

The urgency to reform the defence forces

The wars in Ukraine and West Asia, as well as the limited India-Pakistan conflict last year, have demonstrated how much warfare has changed (@prodefencejammu)
Published on Mar 15, 2026 16:40 IST

Polls that will test INDIA bloc

Five years ago, victories in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Bengal boosted the Opposition and carried it through two subsequent years of electoral drubbing (@mkstalin)
Published on Mar 15, 2026 16:40 IST

Beyond the court rooms

Forty years after Mehta first raised his voice for environmental justice, the Supreme Court on Thursday disposed of his PIL that led to continuous judicial oversight on pollution control in Delhi. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)
Updated on Mar 13, 2026 14:59 IST

Killing children in war zones is a crime

The suffering inflicted on children should be reason enough to end wars. International humanitarian law is clear about what is to be done. (AFP)
Published on Mar 12, 2026 15:23 IST

Battle against cyber scammers

Meta took down 10.9 million accounts linked to scam centres in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the UAE, and the Philippines in 2025 alone. (AFP)
Updated on Mar 12, 2026 15:23 IST

The case for a law on passive euthanasia

In many ways, this is the logical progression of the court’s groundbreaking recognition in 2018 of the right of individuals to die with dignity — a verdict that permitted the removal of life-support systems for the terminally ill, and allowed individuals to decide against artificial life support by creating a living will. (HT Archive)
Published on Mar 11, 2026 14:57 IST

A needed détente with Beijing

China controls critical supplies, not just inputs like rare earths, and also holds a near monopoly on skilled workforces necessary to train workers on cutting-edge shop floors, such as in electronics (AP)
Updated on Mar 11, 2026 14:57 IST

A road journey to retain a party legacy

As he begins his political journey, Nishant Kumar faces the enviable task of protecting his father’s political capital even as he seeks to build his own. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)
Published on Mar 10, 2026 15:34 IST

Oil crisis looms as war drags on

Given the damage to oil and gas-producing infrastructure in the region, the status quo ante , as far as normal production and supplies are concerned, will come with a significant time lag even after a ceasefire. (Reuters)
Published on Mar 10, 2026 15:33 IST

Clean water is a civic right

Whether it’s the national Capital or Indore or any other urban habitation, Indian cities suffer from deep infrastructural inadequacies in their subterranean piped networks. (ANI)
Published on Mar 9, 2026 16:31 IST

Gen Z wins office in Nepal

BalendraShah, whose experience in office is limited to serving as the mayor of Kathmandu, now faces the onerous task of rebuilding the shattered economy, creating jobs and improving health care and education in one of the poorest and slowest-growing economies in South Asia. (AFP)
Published on Mar 8, 2026 15:48 IST