Opinion

Ian Buruma Why would a US President in the last weeks of his administration want to start executing federal prisoners at a furious pace, even as he pardons four American mercenaries who murdered 14 Iraqi civilians in cold blood? The federal government has killed ten...

Brahma Chellaney Even after Asia’s economies climb out of the COVID-19 recession, China’s strategy of frenetically building dams and reservoirs on transnational rivers will confront them with a more permanent barrier to long-term economic prosperity: water scarcity. China’s recently unveiled plan to construct a mega-dam...

SN Misra In 1990, Pakistani Economist Mahbub ul Haq, in close collaboration with Noble laureate Amartya Sen evolved the Human Development Index (HDI) which went beyond the misdirected power of GDP to account for human development capability in terms of education and longevity. Two decades...

Bharat Jhunjhunwala The West and Islam are at loggerheads with each other. This is unfortunate because both are fundamentally egalitarian ideologies. The French Revolution of 1789 was anchored on the slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” Yet, the French people enslaved large parts of North Africa in...

Santosh Kumar Mohapatra The main argument made by the Union government for the new Parliament building is that the current structure is too old and showing signs of structural corrosion and cannot accommodate rising numbers of representatives in the future. It is true that, in...

Gokul Patnaik The raging controversy regarding the new farm laws and the country-wide protest of farmers have once again brought to focus the crucial role played by agricultural markets in economic development. States like Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra have well developed marketing systems which have...

Gokul Patnaik The government has said that the new farm laws are a ‘game changer’ and has promised the farmers freedom, protection, and higher income. They have assured that the farmers can now sell their produce to anyone anywhere. APMC mandis will continue to function...

Arup Kumar Dutta Let me begin this piece by reiterating a personal experience. Some years back, in an interactive session with students of a Delhi school, a youngster asked me: “Why do some of the young people in your books have such funny sounding names?”...

Gokul Patnaik The whole country has been in turmoil for the last few weeks because the farmers are agitated. Lakhs of farmers are on the streets and Delhi, the national capital, is under siege. The bone of contention has been three farm laws which the...

Melvin Durai Akshay Kumar is not just a Bollywood star — he’s an “international megastar,” according to a press release sent out recently by a UK-based public relations firm. This reminds me of all the press releases I’ve seen about professors or scientists who are...