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Shyam Benegal, now 86, doesn’t believe in retirement. Life will happen to you anyway, he says, as he prepares for his first film in 11 years.

The Supreme Court, earlier this month, while hearing petitions against the reservation of seats for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in admissions to post-graduate medical courses through the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Postgraduate) (NEET PG), sought an explanation from the union government for the rationale behind fixing eight lakh rupees as the upper limit for EWS income criteria.

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati called it “sheer drama”, nothing else. “Why did the UPA government not reserve 33 per cent seats in parliament for women when it was in power at the Centre,” asked ‘behan Mayawati’, one woman to another, honest to honest. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra didn’t think there was reason for her to reply. The Congress leader in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and party general secretary had just announced that 40 percent of Congress tickets for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections would go to women.

Disparities among Indian workforce are stark. Gender and educational inequalities are alarming. It has been revealed at a time in the Annual Bulletin on Additional Indicators based on data collected in Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), July 2019-June 2020 released recently, which it could not conceal despite tampering with definitions, and providing data on only usual status that does not reveal the current status on the ground.

Panchkula: In-form Amandeep Drall, is all set for an encore, having won at Chandigarh last week, the Kapurthala based golfer starts strong favourite in the 11th leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour at the Panchkula Golf Club.

October 16 marked 38 years since the death of Maurice Bishop, leader of the tragically short-lived People’s Revolutionary Government of Grenada (PRG). The PRG was formed when the New Jewel Movement (NJM), led by the widely popular Bishop, seized control of the country from the U.S.-backed dictator Eric Gairy. Although the NJM government lasted only four years before Bishop was killed in a military coup led by Bernard Coard (after which the U.S. invaded to destroy the remnants of the movement), Bishop’s humane and popular policies, as well as his internationalist perspective, remain an inspiration to students of the Grenadian Revolution.

The Prime Minister launched National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) on 27th September 2021 giving high hopes that it will bring about drastic improvement in healthcare of our people. The mission is basically to collect and compile health data which has been made easy by the modern technology. Maintaining database on health can be helpful in planning for healthcare. It is also useful for the epidemiologists and research workers in health to analyze health situations from time to time. Already several IT organizations have come up with systems to maintain such details. Patient does not have to carry several pages of her/his medical record as these can be obtained with click of a button. Many corporate hospitals have such systems installed.

The recent high frequency indicators suggest an ongoing economic recovery in India, but pressures of inflation have been elevated along with several other uncertainties. Though IMF assessment for India after Article IV Consultations has said ‘inflation eased to 5.6 per cent in July returning to within the RBI’s inflation target of 4±2 per cent’ it should not be a matter for complacency either for the government or the people. We need to tread carefully.

Maybe in a decade, or a decade and a half, the only Hindu left in Bangladesh could be India’s envoy to Dhaka. That if that gentleman happens to be Hindu. The story is that at the rate at which the Hindu is racing towards "endangered species" status in Bangladesh breaks hearts. In fact, the Bengal Tiger would think it’s better off than the beleaguered Bangladeshi Hindu.

The highly unsatisfactory conditions of prisons and prisoners often gets reported in India. To what extent is this related to budget-related factors? Analysis of official expenditure data for prisons for 2019 throws some light on this issue. Data from ‘Prison Statistics India 2019’, published by the National Crime Records Bureau, shows the total budget allocation for prisons was Rs. 6,818 crore. However, the actual expenditure was Rs. 5,958 crore during the financial year 2019-20. Prisons spent 34 per cent of this on inmates. In 2019-20, this figure was Rs. 2,060 crore.