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As the schools in India have started opening slowly, we have been coming face to face with the reality of the extent of damage that the closure of schools has brought to our children. It was really catastrophic beyond our comprehension, as the latest Schoolchildren’s Online and Offline Learning (SCHOOL) Survey indicates. Presently, 28 per cent children have just stopped studying, another 45 per cent have lost their capability to read even more than a few words, and 75.5 per cent children’s reading abilities have declined. Then nation in finding the task of bringing children back to education tougher than expected.

India’s farmers are not in the mood to fold up their more than nine month agitation, which has acquired a larger purpose – the ouster of Narendra Modi from ‘Dilli’s gaddi’. Enough of the cat-footing, and the street skirmishes, the time’s now come to galvanise the Opposition with more such ‘kisan mahapanchayats’ across the country. The September 5 Muzaffarnagar ‘kisan mahapanchayat’ was followed by one in Karnal, Haryana, on September 7.

Is there a need for caste census? Will it give the right kind of data on different castes in the country or open up Pandora's box? Will it end up tearing the social fabric as it did in 1990 when the then prime minister V.P. Singh decided to implement the Mandal Commission report? Will caste census perpetuate caste? These are some of the questions which need answers when there is a chorus to include the caste census in the next year's decadal census. There are powerful pro and anti lobbies for the caste census.

New Delhi: Former World champion captain Viswanathan Anand will lead a star-studded squad to defend its Online Chess Olympiad crown, which gets underway worldwide late on Monday.

The U.S. war on terror has killed almost one million people across the world and cost the country some $8 trillion over the past 20 years, according to a new report.

It all started with a police demand for police custody being placed in the ordinary course before Justice Akil A. Kureshi’s court in the Gujarat High Court in 2010.

Dr. Chandan Mitra who was a dominant figure in national journalism in India's national capital for the last three decades, died on Wednesday night. He was only 66. I had the good fortune of working with him as colleagues in the Hindustan Times’s Delhi edition. Even after he left HT, both of us maintained friendly relationship despite our strong political differences. That was the great quality of Chandan. He turned into a full-fledged BJP activist in his early days, remained popular as a suave face of the saffron party for a long time, became two-time Rajya Sabha MP from BJP till 2016, was a staple in the TV debates as a BJP spokesman, commanding the debates with his roaring voice, but still remained equally appreciated in non-BJP circles for his jovial manners and unique capacity to make friends across the political spectrum. For young aspiring journalists, he was a mentor.

Having inflicted a humiliating defeat on the BJP and coming back to power for the third consecutive time in West Bengal, a resurgent Trinamool Congress has set its sights on Tripura, a BJP-ruled State, where State Assembly elections are due in February, 2023, or a year and a half from now. Chief Minister Biplab Deb has been known for his non-governance rather than for his efforts at developing the tiny north-eastern State. The BJP came to power in Tripura by weaning over activists of other parties like the Congress, the CPI-M and the TMC. Today these defectors stand thoroughly disillusioned with the performance of the party which once claimed to be a “party with a difference.”

The national government’s Rs 6-trillion ($81-billion) asset monetisation plan may prove to be a big gamble if it goes in the tricky hands of global fund managers. The immediate reason behind the proposed large-scale asset monetisation is known. The government does not have funds to bear the massive cost of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP). Therefore, it wants to monetise a chain of national assets to partly cover the NIP cost. The pandemic has left a big scar on India’s economy. The demand continues to be down. So is the supply.

Farmers have slowly been emerging as irresistible force. Gathering of over a lakh of farmers at Muzaffarnagar Mahapanchayat held on September 5 has not only given a clear indication of their gaining strength during the last nine months of their agitation against Modi’s three farm laws, but has also set in motion an apparent political twist in Uttar Pradesh, which is going to polls within few months in early 2022, and hence the Mission 2022.