Global summits are often as much about symbolism and messaging as they are about well-defined outcomes. Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended, virtually, a meeting with leaders of Brazil, R...

In September 2019, a research article crucially important for South Asia was published in Science under the title, “The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia” (Science, ...

Even as the world continues to be focused on the challenges being posed by the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the battle lines in the Indo-Pacific are getting sharply defined. Addressing the Shangri-L...

Temporary relief Sir — The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated a wellknown phenomenon known as ‘emotional spending’. Even before the pandemic, many would splurge on a new article of c...

The Government of India’s Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2020-21 shows that the unemployment rate in the country has fallen from 5.8% in 2018-19 to 4.2% in 2020-21. The workers’ particip...

Double-facedness is not supposed to be a virtue. But the line between virtue and vice no longer holds in New India whose elected political regime thrives on presenting ‘two faces’ to the n...

One of the earliest books of which I still have a vivid memory  is a collection of fairy tales with brilliantly coloured illustrations. I was too young to be able to actually read the book, with ...

Two parallel trends have come to the fore in the last round of assembly elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party, representing the hegemony of  Hindutva,  continues to taste electoral success. ...

Neglected shelves Sir — Libraries have been repositories of knowledge for millennia. Even a few decades ago, public and community libraries were integral parts of almost every neighbourhood in ...

The Unicef has brought to focus an old problem that has taken calamitous proportions in recent times — malnutrition. It has estimated that almost eight million children under the age of five are...