While Delhi boasts of one of the best metro systems in the world and decent infrastructure, reckless construction, legalising unauthorised colonies, and the worsening water and air quality dent its image of being a robust cosmopolitan city.
As the world awaits the end of the global pandemic, rural Bengal might be witnessing a recession unfolding in bits and pieces. With factories and tea gardens closing down, agricultural income falling and storm Aila ravaging a large part of deltaic West Bengal in 2010, migration gradually became a norm.
With the two members quitting, the NSC now has only two members -- Chief Statistician Pravin Srivastava and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.
Will the AIADMK acknowledge the role of CAA and the anti-CAA protests, both inside the state and outside, as among the causes for the current electoral reversal, as many in the party now want? It is unlikely to be so, but then the pressure will increase on the leadership to reassess the BJP alliance at one level and the 'blind support' for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial policies on the other, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The local labour force is streaming out of the region, creating a vacuum that makes it easier for the Bangladeshis to fill in, says R N Ravi
Ajit Balakrishnan offers a thinking man's guide to e-commerce controversies.
'The Modi government must create conditions to integrate millions into the rural economy as many migrants are certainly not going to return to live an undignified life,' notes Ramesh Menon.
After assuming power in 2014 with a full majority of its own, the BJP-led NDA government started an ambitious process of reforming labour laws in the form of codes aimed at making the framework less cumbersome with a variety of alterations. It had planned four codes each for industrial relations, wages, social security and welfare, and occupational safety, health and working conditions. To this end, 35 central labour laws were to be converted into four codes that would have had the virtue of streamlining labour relations. But none of the proposed code Bills could be converted into a law principally because neither trade unions nor industry representatives came on board. They hold the key to India's low-growth-high unemployment paradigm but the government may struggle to push them through this time as well. Somesh Jha explains why
Opponents of the CAA and NRC have gone to town accusing the BJP of an ulterior motive (read, disenfranchisement of Muslims) in implementing the NRC. By the same token it can be alleged that anti-CAA opponents have a nefarious agenda in mind that would be scuttled by the implementation of the NRC: Namely the accrual of dedicated vote banks and the restoration of Muslim hegemony over at least parts of India, especially Bengal and Assam, argues Vivek Gumaste.
The American had expressed a desire to meet the Sentinelese tribe, which is known to resist all contact with outsiders, often firing arrows at anyone who comes near.
From coming up with the correct list of beneficiaries to finding enough people to work as Ayushman Mitras to generating awareness about the scheme - many things need to fall in place before it can be successfully launched in a few days.
'They are innovating and a new Dalit leadership could be seen at the horizon'
The states fear they would end up funding both their own scheme as well as the newly-announced National Health Protection Scheme.
The Sindhis are a lesson in perseverance. Once uprooted, they've started all over, often reinventing themselves
In analysing census data from 2007-2011, researchers found that the at-birth sex ratios of Asian Americans are the same as white Americans. Arthur J Pais reports
With certain quarters demanding privatisation of public sector banks in the aftermath of the alleged fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB), Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister chairman Bibek Debroy tells Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Ishan Bakshi and Indivjal Dhasmana that reducing government equity even to zero would not mean giving up of government control over these banks.
The verdict in the right to privacy case is historic and of global significance because it establishes dharma, righteousness and destroys adharma.
The verdict in the right to privacy case is historic and of global significance because it establishes dharma, righteousness and destroys adharma.
'The brutal violence of the UP government's first response to the anti-CAA protests suggests that the BJP will test drive the NPR/NRC in UP, where it has both a massive majority in the assembly and a chief minister whose instinct for Hindutva extremism and whose appetite for punitive policing allows a prime minister as darkly majoritarian as Modi to appear statesman-like,' notes Mukul Kesavan.
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao is for protection and education of girl child
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's task is to live down the hype and address the nitty-gritty, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
The HMO said it will amend the rules to increase the time limit of filing of appeals in foreigners tribunals from 60 to 120 days for those who would be excluded from the final NRC.
The law minister said 20 Muslim countries in the world, including Pakistan and Malaysia, have banned the triple talaq. "Why can't a secular India do it?" he asked.
A large number of rich farmers, who earn more than salaried employees in the cities, get away with paying no tax at all in view of the government's lack of will to consider an agricultural income tax
India does not have a stringent privacy or data protection Act.
The only thing more dangerous than a killer who thinks he is acting to protect his faith or community is the killer who knows he is acting with the sanction of his faith or community
'To treat a Hindu fleeing persecution and certain death in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan on par with a Muslim voluntarily sneaking into India for economic reasons or otherwise is callously cruel, blatantly perverse and grossly unjust.' 'The concept of equality cannot be invoked to perpetuate a historical wrong that needs to be righted,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
A round-up of our favourite photographs from the week gone by
That's what teachers are telling students in many Indian schools.
Modi said that mere government budget is insufficient to address the problems such as foeticide and nutrition.
Crores of first-time voters will vote against the Congress -- and tens of crores of existing voters shall do the same. The challenges the Congress shall face after the general election of 2014 may be the most severe that the party has ever tackled, says T V R Shenoy.
'Did Islam kill those five people in London?' 'Or did one wacko individual do them in?' asks Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
Is India witnessing jobless growth or is there actually no issue with employment? The real story is between the first two suggesting that though there is sufficient employment, the challenge is to create well-paying quality jobs, says Amitabh Kant.
'The loose use of words like foreigner or Bangladeshis obscures the fact that the post-Partition migration to Assam has been of both Hindus and Muslims.'
Nick Kyrgios has accused Olympic great Dawn Fraser of being a 'blatant racist'.
The stories of exclusions illustrate so tragically, the need of the hour is to bolster biometrics and 'smart' technologies with something more old-fashioned - the good old fashioned, compassionate human touch, says Geetanjali Krishna.
'Its internal economic rot and corrupt political elite have made the resurgent supremacy of the military establishment more invincible,' says Sunil Sethi.
The construction sector is now India's second-largest employer after agriculture, the trend coinciding with India's high-growth phase and decline in poverty levels
For more than half of all Indian households, the very personal act of defecation is an open affair, says Joel Rai
'The government's proposal to store citizens' data including Aadhaar data under its Digital India initiative on cloud is violative of the citizens' human rights because the cloud is admittedly beyond India's jurisdiction.'
