View Articles

NEW YORK: It must be quite a daunting challenge to start writing an autobiography when you’re over 90! But that’s exactly what movement singer and organizer Barbara Dane has done, and it is a beaut! What amazes me is the ready access she seems to have enjoyed to a vast archive not only of memory itself but of physical evidence—recordings, films, photographs, press coverage, calendars—and a host of fellow artists with whom she collaborated over what for most other performers would have been two or three-lifetime careers.

Union Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Jairam Gadkari may be right to say that electric vehicles manufacturers do not need any more government subsidies, as consumers are now opting for EVs and CNG vehicles independently. The minister reasoned that the drop in production costs and the lower GST on EVs make further subsidies unnecessary, with EV costs expected to match those of diesel and petrol vehicles within two years or so. The initial costs of manufacturing electric vehicles were high. Now, with increasing demand for EVs in the market, production costs are coming down, making further subsidies unnecessary. India has been late to enter the EV market. Initially, EV manufacturing countries did offer various incentives to welcome seemingly eco-friendly electric vehicles to curtail the use of petrol and diesel automobiles. A good number of them have either withdrawn the incentives or in the process of recasting them. Today, countries are more concerned about the systematic dumping of China’s subsidised EVs.

KOLKATA: During the last few months, a disturbing discordance between India’s ambitious developmental initiative in its Northeast and a spectacular failure of governance from Manipur to Assam, has impacted regional stability. Alarmingly, despite GOI’s serious efforts to improve the Manipur law and order situation, even traditional social ethnic relationships, far from flourishing, are rapidly cracking.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's recent trip to the United States has provoked a war of words between the ruling BJP and the main opposition Congress in India. Should the Indian leaders refrain from badmouthing the ruling BJP while abroad? Is there a red line, and has Rahul crossed it while he was in the US? The BJP claims yes, and the Congress says no.

Delhi knows Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister for one more day. Then, he will resign and somebody else will take his place. The only difference will be that while Kejriwal out of jail cannot go to the Chief Minister’s Office or sign papers, the replacement will be able to, be a full-time Chief Minister. The Supreme Court was clear that it doesn't trust Delhi’s most popular politician.

International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) latest report reveals that half of the global population lacks social protection, exacerbating vulnerabilities amid the escalating climate crisis. Over 90% of individuals in climate-vulnerable countries are without any safety net, highlighting a critical gap in support for those most affected by environmental changes.

No matter how many decades pass since Karl Marx’s Capital was first published, and no matter how often it is dismissed as outdated, it time and again returns to the center of debate. At a venerable 157 years of age (it was first published on September 14, 1867), the “critique of political economy” has all the virtues of the great classics: it stimulates new thoughts with each rereading and is capable of illustrating crucial aspects of our present as well as the past.

In modern outsourced governance, unlike earlier times, the boss has to do everything alone. This is reflection of the current outsourced environment in India with a shortages of dedicated employees that plagues all government offices, where the last regular recruitment took place many years ago, and the support staff are either retiring or to retire or have themselves become junior bosses. With about 30 lakh (3 million) vacancies in the central government and its public sector undertakings, contractual staff, who are theoretically on temporary employment, rule the roost.

Narendra Modi is not a friend of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud; nor is he a family member of the CJI. Had Modi fulfilled either of the conditions, his presence at the Ganesh Pooja organized by the Chief Justice would have been fine. Considering that the CJI is also a private person, there is nothing wrong with his performing the pooja, but inviting the prime minister for the event is the height of indiscretion on the part of the CJI, surpassed only by Modi’s acceptance of the invitation.

Social protection gaps in India are still at alarming level. More than half of the population (51.2 per cent) in the country are still totally unprotected, while over half of the global population (52.4 per cent) are covered by at least one social protection scheme, revealed the latest ILO flagship report on social protection.