The biological weapons convention is a non-starter in spite of the efforts of many states in the world for the last five decades mainly because the US is not ready to accept the 'verification protocol' which could allow the formation of some official mechanism for inspections, says Ajay Lele.
If the FM can levy education cess to meet the cost of education, then why not defense cess for defense cost, health cess, food cess, and so on. What are the tax collections meant for, asks Kanu H Doshi, partner of Kanu Doshi Associates, chartered accountants, Mumbai.
'Today, there is pervasive fear in society; an uncertainty of what might happen.' 'This has forced Muslims to shrink further into mental ghettos, with many considering extreme measures like pretending to change their identity.'
Elections 2024 is not as open and shut as has been presumed. There is some life left in it, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
ISRO has to select astronauts, training them to withstand the space environment, and then bring them back to earth and rehabilitate them.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who was taken ill during a roadshow in Varanasi and forced to return to the national capital, was "stable".
If purists are surprised as to why and how people are not demanding prohibition or not talking about past promises, both in the election manifestos five years back and even those made to the courts, the answer lies in how the state has been evolving and changing these past few years, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
GSLV-MK III, which uses a homegrown cryogenic engine, has to do at least two more launches before it begins commercial operations, report Raghu Krishnan and T E Narasimhan.
'The lessons learnt from the triple disaster have put Japan's energy future On the right path,' notes Dr Rajaram Panda.
The policy proposes a single-window platform for facilitation of the Indian software product industry, to help fast-track legal and regulatory issues over import and export, as well as setting up and winding up enterprises.
India-born Nobel laureate Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has been confirmed as president elect of Britain's prestigious Royal Society.
'Much depends on Moon's persuasive skill to make both Trump and Kim shed some of their rigidity and be flexible to accommodate contrarian viewpoints,' says Dr Rajaram Panda.
'If Asia does become a Chinese dominated space, it will not only be because India failed to get its economic act together but also because it did not stand up for its democratic credentials,' warns Shyam Saran, the former foreign secretary.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dig up the perceived past of the DMK rival, now under a new leader in M K Stalin, may not gel with the voters, both old and new. If they are still going to vote for the AIADMK-BJP combine, it will be for entirely different reasons, and despite Modi's poll speeches, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Essentially there are three things the government should be doing: Identify who you are going to get your vaccine from, figure out how you are going to pay for it, and figure out how you're going to deliver it and to whom.'
It looks as if competing political parties in Tamil Nadu have not grasped the full impact and import of a sizable section of voters possibly staying away from voting -- voters, supposedly with a predictable polling pattern -- owing to the Covid second wave and more so, how it could affect the outcome in individual constituencies and even booths, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The truckers' strike, which entered the second day, can push inflation by 50 basis points on account of shortage of perishable goods and panic buying by traders, said economic think tank National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In addition to helping scientists answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter, the material is theorised to have a wide range of applications, including as a room-temperature superconductor.
'Modi is still immensely popular and, therefore, he can sustain any number of policy failures.' 'Modi himself has worn multiple faces so it would be naive to think that the Modi of 2021 will be the same Modi that will be campaigning for re-election in 2024.'
'India does not wish to remain silent in improving its strategic space so that its leverage to counter China's expansionist designs is maintained, besides enabling it to play a responsible role from a position of strength for peace and stability in Asia,' points out Dr Rajaram Panda.
The article is in stark contrast to the TIME cover story done on Modi earlier this month titled 'India's Divider in Chief', written by Aatish Taseer, son of Indian journalist Tavleen Singh and late Pakistani politician and businessman Salmaan Taseer.
'We were lucky, in many ways, that we got the disease late.'
Anjum Mukadam, an astronomer of Indian origin, will be awarded the Robert J Trumpler Award for for designing and building Argos, a fast, CCD-based, time-series photometer to probe stars, including white dwarfs. Her work doubled the number of known pulsating white dwarfs, produced more than a dozen scientific papers, and created in Argos an instrument that is also useful for the detection of extrasolar planets as they transit their parent star.
In a country where 'booth-capturing' and open intimidation of voters used to be a part of the poll processes until not very long ago -- and remains a factor even now - postal vote can challenge the very credibility of the electoral process as a whole, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A time has thus come when state encouragement for rural students led to empowerment of the socio-economically marginalised sections of the population. It included women. Today, with greater exposure and consequent enlightenment, it has gone beyond 'empowerment' to become 'entitlement', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Although the services sector is a huge success, the biggest challenge for the Indian government is to build public support for the sector.
Sukanya Verma looks at the handful of occasions when Bollywood believed sky was the limit.
By the looks of it, the Congress cannot hope to return to power even in election 2024. What it can do is to start from the bottom, hold organisational elections, which are honest, and co-opt those elected to form teams of office-bearers at all levels, right up to the working committee. By the very nature of the elections that they are going to lose, the party should use the interim to shore up youth power, or whatever remains, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39 is in the batch of 2017.
Brown dwarfs are thought to be the missing link between planets and stars, with masses up to 80 times that of Jupiter.
Trump can afford to say that COVID-19 is a 'China virus', but we can't expect Modi to say that aloud while his actions may speak louder, says Rup Narayan Das.
He's the Indian Nobel Prize winner you probably haven't heard of.
Transcript of the chat on China by Srikanth Kondapalli.
If everything falls in place for him and his fellow researcher, Professor Arun Majumdar says a villager in India may be able to produce electricity for his home from a chullah, or a stove that uses wood, coal, dry leaves, or cow-dung to make fire. During winter, instead of turning on heaters, a person anywhere in the world would be able to use a simple power-jacket utilising his body heat to stay warm. The same body heat could even be used to recharge a cell phone.
India has made a good beginning in the area of satellite navigation but still there is a long way to go.
'If Trump is out, Modi is going to find himself in a hotspot, having to reset his relations with the new US President with whom he will have to co-exist for well-nigh his full term,' notes B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
India's soft power diplomacy came into play during this cataclysm affecting the world as the pandemic defies barriers and borders, notes Rup Narayan Das.
Stalin has given due respect to seniority in the pecking order, but has also taken into consideration the demands of individual ministries and the suitability of individuals, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
President Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Rajapaksa will transform Sri Lanka's political landscape after Thursday's electoral triumph, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran Colombo watcher.
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