Prabir Purkayastha ON April 5, 2019, a joint platform of five civil society organisations released an urgent appeal signed by over two hundred eminent persons including two former chief election commissioners – N Gopalaswami and … Read more

NOW, that the excitement and self-congratulatory chest-thumping over India’s successful testing of its anti-satellite missile (ASAT) capability on March 27, 2019 has passed, except of course for continuous misuse in political campaigns by PM Modi, … Read more

The upcoming election is a crucial one. It asks for a re-affirmation of the most fundamental guarantees our Constitution gives us: equal rights to faith or lack thereof; culture; language; association; personal liberty and freedom … Read more

THE second crash of a Boeing 737 Max8 aircraft on March 17 killing all 158 passengers and crew, this time operated by Ethiopian Airlines en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, six months after an … Read more

THE air strikes by India across the Line of Control (LoC) have been accompanied by much chest-thumping by the prime minister, by government and ruling party spokespersons, and camp-follower TV and other media personalities. This … Read more

WITH the elections in the offing, different groups – the Free Software Movement of India, Association for Democratic Reforms, Common Cause, etc – have raised a key issue: how to stop the Indian elections from … Read more

IN these columns of the previous issue, the main points of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Accounts (CAG) on the Rafale deal were discussed. It was noted that all price figures … Read more

IN 2011, in Davos, the World Economic Forum (WEF) hailed the birth of a new “asset class” – data. Going into raptures, they proclaimed data as the new oil. The WEF love for data has … Read more

THE long awaited CAG Report on the Rafale and 10 other defence acquisitions begins with two wrong notes. One is the acceptance of the government’s demand to redact the price details of the Medium Multi-Role … Read more

THE US decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) on February 1, follows closely the start of its production of low yield nuclear warheads and plans to deploy them. To complete … Read more

THE US, European Union (EU) and its allies are part of a 76-country “WTO initiative” on “trade related aspects of e-commerce”. Strangely enough, this initiative was launched in the World Economic Forum at Davos, and … Read more

INDIA became a republic on January 26, 1950, when the constitution, steered by Babasaheb Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly, came into effect. It is the constitution that guarantees that all sections of people – irrespective … Read more