It’s not a ‘Happy Diwali’ for firecracker industry as Covid fear looms

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A total cracker ban now would impact a lot of low-income earners as Diwali accounts for over 75% of cracker sales in India. Synopsis Governments have banned crackers as bursting these will lead to a spike in air pollution and that, with the winter air, could affect Covid patients. Besides, discouraging people from getting together … Read more

Working with her was going to be difficult: Former finance secretary claims Nirmala Sitharaman didn’t want him in her ministry

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Former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg has blamed a messy stint with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman for his abrupt exit in June last year. In a blog post, Garg claimed Sitharaman had insisted on his transfer from the north block, a month after she took over as the finance minister. “She has a very different … Read more

New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern wins ‘historic’ re-election

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WELLINGTON: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivered the biggest election victory for her centre-left Labour Party in half a century on Saturday as voters rewarded her for a decisive response to Covid-19. The mandate means Ardern, 40, could form the first single-party government in decades and will face the challenge of delivering on the progressive transformation … Read more

View: Only a sustained project of strengthening democracy can prevent incidents like Hathras

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How do we account for frequent rapes, especially of Dalit women, and callous, often criminal, police response to the rapes, leading to impunity rather than punishment of rapists, in our democracy where people vote to elect governments and hold them accountable? Caste and patriarchy are readily blamed for the phenomenon. After 70 years of working … Read more

Mandate in a pandemic: NDA has many strengths. But Bihar can yet spring a surprise

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The bugle has been sounded for India’s first assembly election in the Covid-19 era. Despite deciding who governs almost 125 million people in Bihar for the next five years, the biggest multi-faith festival will remain like other celebrations since March — subdued, albeit in campaign method. While people are making prophecies about low turnout, voter … Read more

To go or not to go out in times of Covid: Invitations to socialise are back

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A friend’s birthday is looming, and I am in an agony of indecision. A couple of months ago, life was simple. In the hazy period before Covid-19, I used to scramble for excuses to ditch the occasional party at the last minute (“Deadlines!” “My boss just called!” “Deadlines!”). But the pandemic had done away with … Read more

How desi Youtubers are using India’s social landscape to their advantage

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So far, the programme has garnered a whopping 1 billion views on YouTube. Synopsis These videos, mostly comedy or drama genre, leave the popular comedy channels that focus on an English-speaking, urban audience far behind in subscribers. Khandeshi Movies, for example, has racked up 19.6 million subscribers with just 135 videos. Chotu ke Golgappe is … Read more

How a new political party to be formed by AASU can change Assam’s political dynamics

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In December 1985, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta moved his belongings from a hostel room in Gauhati University to the chief minister’s bungalow. So did most of his cabinet colleagues. They were all office-bearers of the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) spearheading an anti-foreigners movement (1979-85) before forming a new political entity and wresting Assam’s political power … Read more

The essence of Bhagavad Gita: Understanding the significance of sattva-guna, rajo-guna and tamo-guna

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The Bhagavad Gita informs us that the world is made of two intertwined entities: the material (prakriti) and the spiritual (purusha). The latter is technically not an entity as it cannot be measured. It is what makes us alive. Matter has three qualities (guna): the lucid (sattva), the passionate (rajas) and the sluggish (tamas). Everything … Read more

View: The contempt finding in the Prashant Bhushan case serves to reinforce the notion of ‘respect’

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In the fairy tale about the emperor’s new clothes, when the child, who is too young and naïve to be afflicted by the pretence and hypocrisy that adult society accepts as the oxygen of survival, cries out that the emperor has no clothes on, the ruler has the grace to accept his mistake, don real … Read more