Opinion News Updates

The long festering OROP (one rank-one pension) issue that goes back to 1973 has acquired disturbing visibility in recent months due to the protest mounted by the retired veterans at Jantar Mantar and the ignominy of the Delhi Police manhandling the country's retired soldiers a day before Independence Day

Baramulla: Nearly a year later, Jammu and Kashmir is yet to recover from the devastating floods that claimed nearly 300 lives and caused widespread destruction. But many Kashmiris say the deluge has united them like never before. In Baramulla district, around 40 km from Srinagar, an IANS correspondent met many people who are still living […]

Patna village (Madhya Pradesh): A simple innovation like a check-dam has dramatically turned around the lives of the 500-odd people in 90 poor Adivasi houselholds in this village located on a water-scarce plateau in Madhya Pradesh, where the nearest water body was once over four kilometres away. Located in the Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh’s […]

New Delhi: To write a book someday…what an often heard, yet-to-be fulfilled dream! If it’s a long cherished wish of yours too, it’s probably time to take a leaf out of some of the bloggers-turned-authors’ books. According to these authors, their first step into the literary world started with their blog which gave them all […]

By Amitava Mukherjee Two very important statements from Kevin Andrews, Australia’s foreign minister, and Kevin Rudd, the country’s former prime minister, have opened up the scenario of a newly developing strategic balance in the Indian Ocean and the Asia Pacific regions. While Andrews has rued Australia’s previous decision of walking out from Malabar, a multilateral […]

New Delhi: Assam has become the latest state to implement an act prohibiting witch-hunting but a prominent activist against this social evil feels awareness in terms of education and health should also go hand in hand with strong legislation. The Assam assembly unanimously passed the Assam Witch Hunting (Prohibition, Prevention and Protection) Bill, 2015, on […]

In March 2015 - in response to a drop in sales as taxes more than doubled over four years - India’s leading cigarette company ITC Ltd. shortened its discount Bristol-brand cigarettes by 5 mm

Fifty years after India and Pakistan engaged in a full-scale war, the return to Pakistan of territory captured by the soldiers still rankles the veterans of the 1965 conflict

Kolkata: In its 198-year-old history, Presidency University (formerly Presidency College) has seen it all – from being a prominent hub of India’s nationalist movement, to emerging as hotbed of West Bengal’s Maoist agitation. it has churned out elites and Nobel laureate – and of late, witnessed a spate of ignominious anti-establishment students’ protests. Barely a […]

New Delhi: As India works on its voluntary commitments to reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Indian experts have explained how the country could cut its carbon emissions from short-lived climate pollutants by nearly three-fourths using low-cost methods and, in the process, transform the lives of the poor. The US, EU and China are among […]

Indian exports have fallen for the eighth consecutive month – 10.3 percent from the July 2014 level of $25.793 billion to $23.137 billion in July 2015. The fall, if taken out of context, would call for a worrying picture. However, given that imports have also fallen 10.28 percent from $40.068 billion in July 2014 to […]

Don’t know Arabic or fluent English? You’ll still get by in the UAE if you know Hindi or Malayalam – a line often repeated in jest here. But mind you, there’s a whole lot of truth in that. The UAE is home to 2.6 million Indian expats, the largest expat community constituting 30 percent of […]

Notwithstanding the cheers which Prime Minister Narendra Modi received while announcing the Rs.1.25 lakh crore special package for Bihar at an election rally, he will be making a mistake if he believes that the bonanza will ensure the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) runaway victory in the state assembly elections in October/November. All that it can […]

India and Pakistan have just celebrated their 69th Independence Days. But born in a climate of pervasive hostility, indiscriminate violence and unimaginable suffering and forced translocations for their peoples, the two countries have yet to overcome their toxic birthright to live as better neighbours than they have done so far. What are the reasons for […]

Mumbai: The young and petite Alia Bhatt, who has flaunted her well-toned figure in a bikini in her upcoming movie “Shaandaar”, says she ensures she eats properly. “My only mantra is to eat healthy and properly. The most important is to feed yourself right kind of nutrition, right rest and you have to feel internally […]