By Amulya Ganguli It was the Bofors howitzer scandal which brought down the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989. Since then, none from the dynasty has been the prime minister although the Congress has been in…
By Kamala Thiagarajan Madurai: When 12-year-old Madhu (not his real name) was diagnosed as obese he weighed 98 kg when his ideal weight was 55 kg there were no obvious medical issues, except…
By Saeed Naqvi It was like a macabre end to a Chabrol movie. I had returned with images of such aesthetic delight from the Pahela Baishakh festivities in Dhaka that the news of Professor Rezaul…
By Shobhit Mathur & Nomesh Bolia After spending about Rs.3.5 lakh crore ($51 billion) – almost equal to Indias subsidy and pensions budget for 2015-16 – over 10 years on the worlds largest rural jobs…
By Prachi Salve No more than 17.6 percent of urban solid-waste (garbage) was processed as of March 2016, against a target of 30 percent set last year under the Swachh Bharat (Clean India) Mission launched…
By Prachi Salve Of a target of 2.5 million household toilets in urban areas by March 2016, 24 percent (0.6 million) have been constructed. Of a target of 100,000 community and public toilet seats in…
By Vijay Kranti The four-day conference of a host of anti-Beijing international Chinese action groups in Dharamsala from April 28 is bound to mark a watershed in the history of India-China relations. Contrary to India’s…
By Amit Kapoor India’s intellectual property (IP) regime has witnessed steady progress ever since the country became a signatory to the TRIPS agreement of the World Trade Organization, which entered into force in 1995. Post…
By Amitava Mukherjee There is now a distinct possibility that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) may be engulfed by an internecine struggle as Mamata Banerjee, the party supremo, has been trying to distance herself from the…
By Govindraj Ethiraj The rise in credit card outstandings in itself is not so much of a worry as much as two accompanying factors. First, industrial credit or loans made to businesses or corporations…
By Abhishek Waghmare The term SBC appearing on restaurant, telephone and club bills nationwide refers to the Swachh Bharat Cess, one of 10 levies that go directly to the central government and are…
By Vikas Datta Poets can be divided into two broad categories – those who are sometime, somewhere influenced by the world outside and ‘prosaic’ concerns like politics, or at least reference what is happening, while…
By Amulya Ganguli The high level of violence in West Bengal during the election campaign – far more than in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puduchery which are also going to the polls – can…
By Saeed Naqvi We have grown accustomed to receiving greeting cards at the end of the year. That is why BJP stalwart Murli Manohar Joshis beautifully inscribed New Year greetings marked April 14, the first…
New Delhi: A view of traffic at ITO on the fifth day of implementation of odd-even traffic scheme aimed at battling pollution in New Delhi on April 19, 2016. (Photo: IANS) IndiaSpend Team If you…
By Chaitanya Mallapur A 65-year-old citizenship issue, reflecting the strains of migration, has resulted in no more than 3.2 percent of Assam’s population being enrolled in Aadhaar, Indias biometrics-based unique identity system, the worlds largest….
By Rajendra Shende The singular credit for conceiving and championing the Nuclear Security Summits unarguably goes to US President Barack Obama. In 2009, he called nuclear terrorism one of the greatest threats to international security…
By Abhishek Waghmare Indias biggest reform to transform the life of a crisis-ridden farmer is 91.6 percent behind schedule this year, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to promise in five months what could not be…
By Amitava Mukherjee Never before in the political history of West Bengal has there been such an acute leadership crisis cutting across political spectrums as is now being witnessed in the midst of the assembly…
By Amit Kapoor Agriculture is a critical sector of the Indian economy. This is because, in spite of its relatively low and declining contribution to the GDP, the sector provides direct or indirect employment to…