Taking the nation by surprise, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday night announced demonetisation of Rs. 1000 and Rs. 500 notes with effect from midnight, making these notes invalid in a major assault on black money, fake currency and corruption. In his first televised address to the nation, Mr. Modi said people holding notes of […]
The festive season is upon us with less of the festive ‘spirit’ in the Boondocks of Bihar. By now, every dhobi and his donkey knows that this blessed state is dry. The Chief Minister in his role as Master Nanny has shut down the elite watering holes and deprived the well heeled of their single […]
A deeply disturbing outcome of the “surgical strike” on Pakistani across the line of control in Kashmir is how the ruling and opposition parties, as well as some retired army officers are trying to drag the Indian Army into politics. The politicians’ of course, are motivated by the coming Uttar Pradesh elections. The greater blame […]
Is Francis of Assisi relevant today? St. Francis was a strong voice in the nonviolent struggle for racial harmony and reconciliation. Francis lived in the political turmoil of the 13th Century “Holy Roman Empire,” locked in a culture of war as the empire united in a series of Crusades against Muslims, Jews and others labelled […]
Cecelia Ahern’s book ‘Where the Rainbows End’ is a heart –warming book which leaves you warm inside. The story is about Alex and Rosie who are best of friends since childhood. They are torn apart as teenagers as Alex’s father moves to Boston from Dublin as he got a new job. Despite of the distance […]
Why is Child Abuse, either physical or sexual, covered up by Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi migrants in the UK? A 2016 report by the Child Protection department of the UK government highlighted the extent of child sexual abuse. They found over 47,000 police records regarding sexual abuse between 2014 and 2015 the highest recorded in […]
Throughout history and across cultures, elephants have amazed and perplexed us. They have been feared and hunted as wild animals, attacked and killed as dangerous pests. They also laboured for humans as vehicles, engineering devices, and weapons of war. Elephants have also been exploited for the luxury commodity of ivory, laughed at as objects of […]
India, said Hilary Clinton in one of her election speeches, is ‘indispensable’ in South Asia. Why does that statement scare some Americans (and a lot of the Chinese)? Read on. Peter Lee runs the China Matters blog. He writes on the intersection of US policy with Asian and world affairs. An extract of his analytical […]
To defeat ISIS, South Asian countries must look beyond their selfish and myopic interests The so-called Islamic State (IS) in appeared around 2014. Since then, policymakers and the strategic community in South Asia remain divided on whether the terrorist group poses a threat to the region or not. These differences can be attributed to two […]
Is India on the brink of a ‘Dalit uprising’? Are the self proclaimed ‘gau rakshaks’ queering Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pitch? Will Prime Minister Modi rise to the occasion and come up with a master stroke that unifies India? India cannot be the country where a cow is more valuable than a human being, writes […]
Point and Counterpoint: Vegan Food [The comments in brackets are by Boy Shakira, the serious stuff is written by Newsnet Intern Seema Kumari] Food is the basic need of everybody. Some are vegetarian, some are hard-core meat lovers and there are some turning towards vegan food. (Vegan Food?, Um… like Vegetarian hard-core man!) Vegan food […]
A subdued Pakistan went into national mourning to bid farewell to a man who owned just two sets of clothes. Mr Abdul Sattar Edhi, the founder of Pakistan’s largest welfare organisation, died on Friday last week in Karachi aged 88. Mr Edhi, a sort of Pakistani ‘Mother Teresa’, was revered for setting up maternity wards, […]
