Guest Column News Updates

By Ashutosh Mishra London: Racist abuse aimed at England players during Monday’s Euro qualifier against Bulgaria has received massive coverage in the British newspapers. The match that the visiting team won 6-0 was marred by uncharitable comments from Bulgarian fans directed against England’s black players. The naked display of racism by the white-skinned Bulgarian chauvinists […]

By Ashutosh Mishra London: Crime is on the rise in this city. While a drug cartel seems to be active knife crime has escalated. According to reports in a section of the media here this kind of crime has risen to a record high with more than 15,000 offences in a year being for the […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: Odisha Congress’s defeatist attitude is the biggest stumbling block in the path of its revival in the state. The latest example of this attitude is the statement of party veteran, former minister, Suresh Kumar Routray on a local TV channel almost conceding defeat in the Bijepur assembly by-poll. Asked about the […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: For the BJP, which has emerged as the main opposition party in the state, results of the last assembly elections were not upto the leadership’s expectations. Set a goal of 120 plus seats by BJP president, Amit Shah state party leaders had hoped to win at least 50 seats, if not […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: Senior police officials in Koraput recently brainstormed on ways to contain left wing extremism in southern Odisha, specially the erstwhile undivided Koraput district. The area comprising the present Koraput, Malkangiri, Nowrangpur and Rayagada districts deserves special attention as Maoist rebels have been most active in this belt. The area shares borders […]

By Ashutosh Mishra London: Railway service in England is pretty efficient. Trains are fast and run on time. Instances of disruption of service are few and far between. The kind of shambolic scenes that we generally witness at railway stations in India are but rare here. Extinction Rebellion protesters, who practically laid seize to this […]

By Ashutosh Mishra London: The island of Malta, located slap-bang in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, is being touted as one of the hottest destinations for the footloose and fancy-free looking for a perfect winter getaway. One of the newspapers here has run a two-page ad feature that begins thus: “shrug off winter’s chill and […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: If reports in a section of the media are to be believed Odisha has the dubious distinction of being ranked among 10 Indian states with a high crime rate against women. Backed by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figures they paint a grim picture of the state as one of the […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: Chief minister, Naveen Patnaik has taken a step in right direction by asking ministers to make surprise visits to check the quality of food served to children at schools and orphanages. They have also been instructed to share meals with students in schools and the inmates of orphanages. Equally significant is […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: Coastal security is a major issue in Odisha given the state’s 480 km long coastline which is largely unguarded. At least it does not have the kind of security it deserves. The issue of coastal security comes into focus from time to time when incidents reminding the authorities of its need […]

By Ashutosh Mishra London: The tragic death of 39 Chinese migrants in a refrigerated lorry that was discovered in Essex earlier this week has brought the issue of human trafficking back into focus. The illegal migrants were dreaming of starting a new life in Britain, the never never land of their imagination with its streets […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: The mammoth victory of Biju Janata Dal (BJD) candidate, Rita Sahu in the just concluded assembly by-poll in Bijepur has re-affirmed the ruling party’s electoral supremacy in the state. While it comes as yet another proof of chief minister, Naveen Patnaik’s invincibility it has dealt a blow to BJP’s ambitions of […]

By Ashutosh Mishra London: Among British newspapers, the Guardian seems to have given the most authentic and graphic account of the last moments of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the dreaded Islamic State leader who met his end in a dead-end tunnel in northwestern Syria. The paper’s Middle East Correspondent, Martin Chulov begins his story as if […]

By Sandeep Sahu It’s an extraordinary situation for sure and I seriously doubt if the judicial system in India has seen anything like this before. Just imagine a High Court, no less, as one of the ‘parties’ in a case! It had to the unenviable task of appointing a counsel to ‘represent’ it in the […]

By Ashutosh Mishra Bhubaneswar: The Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) is on a high following its landslide victory in the just concluded Bijepur assembly by-poll. On present form it seems to be miles ahead of its rivals—BJP and Congress—who have utterly failed to project themselves as an alternative to Patnaik. Congress is down in […]