Voice of the People
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TATA SONS is facing an existential crisis. The legal battles and personality conflicts within Tata Sons and the Tata Trusts cannot be resolved by the prevailing laws governing charities, financial institutions and business corporations. Tata Sons is getting tied up in knots by different laws. Before selecting its next Chairperson, the board must ask itself […]
ON July 12, 2026, thousands of people gathered in Phagwara, Punjab, under the banner of a new identity called Ravidassia, demanding that their caste-religious identity be recognised in the upcoming 2027 Census under a separate column. This was a case of history repeating itself, but with a tinge of irony. The Doaba region of Punjab […]
BANGLADESH’s new President, the once Left-leaning Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, was all of 23 years old back in March 1971, at home in Thakurgaon in northern East Pakistan, when he heard that Pakistani military officers had unleashed Operation Searchlight all over the country and were massacring unarmed Bangladeshi nationalists, intellectuals and politicians. Two days later, […]
HAS Britain really moved on from the jewels in the crown? From Delhi, it is tempting to watch the latest India-Pakistan spat with a mixture of amusement and disbelief. On Wednesday, the US Ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, visited Srinagar and described Jammu and Kashmir as an “important part of India.” Pakistan promptly protested. Then […]
The Jantar Mantar protests were an eye-opener. They cocked a snook not just at the state and its machinery, but also at some derisive perceptions about the youth. The notion that this young generation is a self-absorbed, politically apathetic, social-media-obsessed and listless lot was something even parents grumbled about — and the ruling powers took […]
FINALLY, India is conducting its Census. Like most other countries, India has been enumerating its population according to several social and economic attributes every 10 years. The Census was scheduled to be held in 2021, but it got delayed, initially because of Covid-19 and later due to internal contingencies. With the household as the unit […]
AN assistant sub-inspector — Balani Premabaram — who was on duty at the main gate of 34 Battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Nagaon, Assam, on August 4 went to the Quarter Guard, took a rifle, walked up to the rear of the Quarter Guard and shot dead two of his colleagues […]
IN his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke of ‘Dimagi Naxals.’ The expression has predictably generated controversy. The term Naxal is not new to India. For decades, successive governments at the Centre and in the states have struggled to bring Naxalism under control. The word evokes guns, violence, death and surrender; it has […]
THE decision of Punjab to pave the way for three private digital open universities marks one of the most significant developments in the state’s higher education landscape in decades. Yet before these institutions begin admitting students, parents and policymakers are asking a fundamental question: Can a university without a traditional campus deliver education of the […]
THE washout of the recent monsoon session of Parliament has again drawn attention to the institutional crisis that stares India in the face today, for any democracy is only as strong or weak as the institutions that uphold it. In the summer of 1787, when the founding fathers of the United States of America met […]
THE Department of Health Research (DHR), a wing of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has proposed a national health research policy. The department has been in existence for almost two decades, but it has woken up only now to the fact that India lacks a dedicated policy on health research. As per the […]
The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act) was amended by Parliament to provide a level playing field for mineral prospecting and extraction across states. It is also expected to ensure greater certainty and transparency around the numerous taxes, cesses, royalties and other levies that mines must pay. Take, for instance, the […]
Punjab is struggling with interconnected crises of agrarian distress, unemployment, industrial stagnation, mounting debt, water distress and pollution. But perhaps its most consequential crisis is visible in crowded airports, proliferation of immigration centres, lakhs of applications for visas and permanent residency and increasingly empty classrooms. The youth of Punjab is migrating to foreign…
AS I look at the latest V-Dem Academic Freedom Index, I feel I am shocked, but not necessarily surprised. I am shocked because India is placed in the bottom 10-20% of 179 countries on academic freedom. What intensifies my pain and angst is that India’s position is the lowest since 1990, and even below the […]
For quite some time, Punjab has been grappling with challenges regarding its financial and economic development due to a massive debt burden. The Aam Aadmi Party government came to power by primarily highlighting the issue of economic and financial mismanagement—specifically the state’s mounting debt—that accumulated under the previous Akali-BJP and Congress governments. The AAP had […]
This is becoming normal in India: No accountability. From the pothole that killed a schoolgirl in UP and the tap water that poisoned infants in Indore to the exam paper leak for the third consecutive year, a new normal is emerging. And is there a chance of anyone being punished or these occurrences? The answer […]
IN his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledged that coaching classes have become a major financial burden on families, with parents fearing that a child who does not attend coaching will fall behind. The government, he said, would use India’s digital public infrastructure, good teachers and technology to build an extensive network offering […]
