‘Udta Punjab’ by Anurag Kashyap has brought the crisis of drug abuse that has gripped the State into mainstream discourse. The movie provides rare glimpses of the extent of the menace that affects all, without the bias of gender or class. The following section provides succinct previews about the worsening condition of Punjab. […]
As per the ‘State of the World‘s Children 2015’ report published by United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the level of children who are underweight, stunted and wasted are 44, 48 and 20 per cent respectively. However, this Report is based on 2005-06 data of National Family Health Survey-III conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Further, in the Rapid Survey of Children (RSoC) conducted by Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) in association with UNICEF in 2013-14, these figures are 29.4, 38.7 and 15.1 per cent respectively. […]
For all of us in the 21st century, Bastar is a landscape of forests, tribals and a bloody battleground for security forces and the armed insurgents known as Maoists. One way, it is a landscape of perceptions. Unless one ventures into this area in Chhattisgarh. From Jagdalpur to Dantewada, the road meanders through dense sal forests. Often wild fruit-bearing trees and medicinal plants appear. Posts of the Central Reserve Police Force are visible within short distances of each other. People generally refuse to go to these places after daylight. […]
There has been a tectonic shift in the global geopolitical economy, to which powers such as the U.S., China and Russia have responded. However, India is yet to formulate a worldview even as Asia, after a gap of 260 years, is again set to become the centre of the world. Till 1757, India was the richest country with its wealth based on textile export: India clothed the world. The choices we made enabled the British to secure the “Diwani” of Bengal. The loot oiled the Industrial Revolution (textile production), and brought about colonisation and impoverishment. In 1950, India was richer [...]
Gandhi’s movement, a century ago, was a political campaign operating in a more hostile environment than today’s. Yet it brought lasting reform without alienating the opposition Our nationalist mythology has painted the Champaran movement as an outright revolt against an oppressive colonial government and business interests. But in fact, there never was a Champaran movement as such. Gandhi did not organise protest marches, no-rent campaigns, strikes, satyagraha or civil disobedience in Champaran. […]
World Bank cuts India’s FY17 growth forecast to 7% The World Bank has lowered its growth forecast for India to 7 per cent from 7.6 per cent in 2016-17, citing a slowdown in consumption and manufacturing due to demonetisation and an ongoing decline in private investment and credit constraints due to impaired bank balance sheets. […]
“Education is not solely an academic pursuit; it is a pursuit of moral wisdom.” Young monks study in their school inside Thikse Monastery in Ladakh. […]
Pravasi Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PKVY) On the sidelines of the 14th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention,the PM has announced a scheme to skill Indian youth seeking jobs abroad. […]
In a seminal paper, ‘Complexities of 21st Century Policing’, published last year, Professor David Bayley of the State University of New York, Albany was categorical that the traditional notion of police professionalism was dead, and that the plea for ‘policing with consent’ must be rethought. In the paper, Prof. Bayley, whose association with the Indian police goes back 50 years, makes a plea for new institutions within the police so as to draw benefit from public inputs, accompanied by the engendering of a new professionalism based on rigorous evaluation of existing strategic and managerial policies. Reliance should be more on [...]
