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Unless paid and formal employment is guaranteed, a woman’s economic activity in India is associated with a higher risk of intimate partner violence(IPV).However, household and other characteristics, such as higher agency within the household, higher education of the husband, lower social acceptance of IPV, and normalization of reporting incidences of violence counter this association. At the state level, the presence of more female leaders, better reporting infrastructure for victims of IPV, and higher charge-sheeting rates are associated with a lower risk of IPV.

Who is afraid of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991? A parallel can be drawn with ‘Who is afraid of Islamophobia?’ which sounds like somebody with a genuine phobia of Islam. But ask a Muslim and as far as he is concerned, ‘Islamophobia’ is casting all sorts of accusations and slurs against the “peaceful religion”, therefore, genuinely anti-Islam and anti-Muslim.

Pollution from stubble burning from neighbouring areas visits Delhi every year. Health hazards apart, schools have to be closed, government organisations and private firms find little alternative but to ask their employees to work from home.

Much has been written about Sambhal, a town in Uttar Pradesh, where a week back, violence had erupted. A team had conducted a second survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid, to establish that the Masjid was built on the debris of a temple. This is similar to the claim in Gyanwapi mosque in Varanasi, the Shahi Idgah in Mathura, and the Kamal-Maula Mosque at Dhar in Madhya Pradesh. In Sambhal, it took hardly any time to flare up and soon situation turned explosive. Four persons were killed though police was firmly repeating that they used only tear gas and rubber pellets. According to reports, 31 persons have been arrested.

As the year 2024 is ending and India is on the threshold of beginning a New Year 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his senior officials in both PMO and the external affairs ministry are relaxed and looking for positive developments in the coming year for Indian diplomacy. Narendra Modi has reasons to be politically upbeat after the BJP’s big success in the latest assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana as also in by polls in Uttar Pradesh but his real reason for relief is the coming appointment of the PIO Kashyap Patel to the post of the Director of FBI under the Trump administration.

Impartiality in decision-making is regarded as the cornerstone of a fair and just legal system. Judges are expected to set aside personal beliefs, biases, and prejudices in order to apply the law objectively, ensuring that their decisions are based solely on the facts presented before them. The decision by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna to recuse himself from hearing petitions challenging the exclusion of Chief Justices of India (CJIs) from the panel selecting the Chief Election Commissioner must lead to a debate on the nature of judicial recusal and the impact of personal beliefs on court decisions. While recusal is a necessary and sometimes unavoidable mechanism to preserve the integrity of the judicial process, it raises important questions about the role of personal biases and judicial conscience in high-stakes cases.

The new wave of farmers’ protests in India have now prompted the Vice-President of India Jagdeep Dhankhar to rebuke the Centre led by PM Narendra Modi cautioning him against taking it lightly, saying that a nation that tested the patience of farmers paid a heavy price.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call for begetting more child has abominably exposed his lack of moral conviction and monotheist demeanour. Any narrative ought to have a strong and tenable logical base. Else, it would be treated not more than a trash. Like all his previous sermons, this too utterly lacks rationality. It manifests his intellectual bankruptcy. This impression gets more reinforced with his pushing for national population policy (NPP). He ought to have clarified why India needs NPP.

The turnstiles opened for Devendra Fadnavis this time and Eknath Shinde couldn't get through to the top post. The BJP's central observers placed their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s "param mitra Devendra", who will be a third-time Chief Minister of Maharashtra and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, one of the two central observers, expressed relief that the logjam had finally ended. The second observer, former Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, let the "secret" out from the podium.

Less than two months are left for the presentation of the second budget of the third term Narendra Modi government in Parliament in February next year relating to the financial year 2025-26. The budget exercises are on in the finance ministry and the focus is on mobilizing additional resources for meeting the development expenditure. The recent meeting of the G-20 nations held in Brazil in its declaration has called for imposing tax on super rich as a part of the group’s efforts to meet the costs of combating hunger in poor nations and taking care of the costs of inclusive development in others. India is a signatory to this declaration. Prime Minister Narendra Modi took an active part in discussions. It is imperative for India to implement the proposal through budget 2025-26.