Opinion News Updates

New Delhi: The Rs.2,035-crore National Cancer Institute (NCI) – touted as one of the biggest government-run health projects in the country – has got a nudge from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). The project was delayed by almost a year, but the PMO has directed that it should be completed before the September 2017 deadline. […]

New Delhi, Sep 26 (IANS/IndiaSpend) Thirty-five-years-ago, Bhagirathi Devi was a sweeper in the block development office in Narkatiyaganj, a town in Bihar’s West Champaran district. Today, she is a third-term member of the legislative assembly (MLA) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), representing the Ramnagar (formerly Shikarpur) constituency in northwestern Bihar, one of 34 female […]

Last year, in eastern Bihar’s Phulwari Sharif, 24-year-old Masahun Khatun was five months pregnant when she fell in the courtyard of her house. For the next three weeks, Masahun and her husband shuttled between government hospitals and private practitioners, spending over Rs.40,000 on healthcare, as they tried to get an abortion. Masahun did not survive […]

Rahul Gandhi’s photos adorn the shoulders of mainstream newspapers but he is in Aspen, Colorado, apparently to attend a conference. BJP spokesman Sambit Patra made a valid point: Rahul has never attended such intellectually challenging seminars in India. Why such enthusiasm for an event at Aspen? The election campaign in Bihar is in full swing. […]

Patna: RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s reported remark suggesting a review of job and education quotas appears to have proved a blessing in disguise for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his ally Lalu Prasad ahead of Bihar’s assembly elections. RJD and JD-U leaders say that Bhagwat’s statement — later denied — would help the Rashtriya Janata […]

Chandigarh: India’s oldest serving chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal, has often highlighted the miserable condition of farmers in the Green Revolution hub Punjab, warning that the peasantry, facing huge losses, could revolt if nothing was done urgently. A new book rips apart the political leadership for the mess. The book, “Punjab – A Frozen Tear/Hopes […]

India’s daily death toll due to road accidents is more than four times the annual death toll from terrorism. As many as 139,671 people lost their lives on India’s roads during 2014 – 382 deaths every day. For comparison, the total number of deaths (civilians and security personnel) due to terrorism-related incidents was 83 in […]

New Delhi: Pakistan’s former president and military ruler Ayub Khan had “no intention” of going to war with India in 1965, and was taken aback when India “launched an attack”, said his son Gohar Ayub Khan, a retired Pakistani military officer and a veteran politician. An aide-de-camp to his father Ayub Khan, Pakistan’s first military […]

The surveys and online polls that throw up dismal figures in terms of the success of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan may well give the opposition a handle to criticise the pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But sadly, what they do not realise is that the cleanliness programme that the prime minister initiated on the […]

India’s public-health system needs urgent attention, investment -especially in the rural areas – and attention, reveals an IndiaSpend analysis. There is an 83 percent shortage of specialist medical professionals in community health centres (CHCs), according to the Rural Health Statistics-2015, released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The CHCs constitute the secondary level […]

New Delhi: In 2002, when experimental cinema was not as welcome as it is today, Meghna Gulzar dared to be different with “Filhaal…”, a film on surrogacy. The filmmaker is only glad she is “ahead of time” with her creativity. ” ‘Filhaal…’, even though it was appreciated, didn’t do very well commercially. Back then, people […]

London: A second dengue infection can be life-threatening, new research shows. This is because, for decades, scientists have thought that there are four genetically-distinct types of the deadly dengue virus. Now, a global consortium of laboratories has shown that far more important are the differences in the virus’ anti-genic properties – the “coats” that the […]

New Delhi: The recently-concluded World Hindi Conference in Bhopal was conducted by people with “obvious party affiliations” which left out noted Hindi writers, Hindi media persons and students, says a veteran journalist and noted writer. Mrinal Pande, who chaired one of the sessions at the event, feels the Narendra Modi-led NDA government had “erred in […]

By Aadil Mir Srinagar: “A wailing mother jumped inside the grave and asked me to bury her along with her son who was killed in cross-firing while on way to school. I could not control myself and my eyes welled up,” says a grave digger who has been at the job for around 25 years. […]

New Delhi: The Ramayana and the Gita are not religious texts and should be taught in schools, according to union Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma. Sharma said that including the Ramayana and the Gita in school curriculum was an attempt to inculcate spiritual and cultural values in children. “It is an attempt to teach spiritual values […]