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The Board of Control for Cricket in India has only itself to blame for its present predicament. Its president and secretary have been removed for defying the Supreme Court’s order to accept reforms suggested by a court-appointed committee. And its president, Anurag Thakur, now faces legal action for contempt of court as well as prosecution for perjury. None of this would have happened had the BCCI shown some sense of responsibility and a vision for the future, and recognised the fact that the highest court was only seeking to reform the manner in which cricket is administered in the country. In the court’s view, the appointment of the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee and adoption of its recommendations were part of a project to bring transparency and accountability to the BCCI. While the court expected cooperation and compliance, the BCCI responded with obstructionist tactics and defiance. It was therefore inevitable that the court would seek to send out a message that it will not brook a...

The New Year’s-eve  attack on an Istanbul nightclub  that killed at least 39 people, mostly foreigners including two Indians, is yet another reminder of the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Turkey. It comes days after the Russian ambassador to Turkey,  Andrey Karlov, was shot dead in Ankara  by a lone gunman. In 2016, there were dozens of violent incidents, both by the Islamic State and Kurdish rebels, which have raised questions about the government’s ability to provide even basic public security. The attacks have also badly hit the tourism economy, which makes a sizeable contribution to Turkey’s GDP. The Istanbul attacker, who the IS has called “a heroic soldier of the Caliphate”, has followed a similar pattern. He chose an upmarket nightclub in the western part of Istanbul where foreign tourists had gathered to welcome the New Year. But why is Turkey being repeatedly targeted? Or, how has the country, till a few years ago politically stable with a boo...

President Barack Obama’s decision to slap more sanctions on Russia and sack 35 diplomats from the U.S. is the latest flashpoint in the bilateral relations of the former Cold War foes. Though the immediate trigger for Mr. Obama’s action are the cyberattacks on Democratic Party systems, which U.S. intelligence agencies believe were carried out by Russians to influence the results of the presidential election, the action must be seen against the deteriorating relationship between the two countries. Ironically, Russia-U.S. relations have hit the lowest point since the collapse of the Soviet Union under a president who had promised a “reset” of ties. At home Mr. Obama faces criticism for not acting decisively against Russian interventions that go against American interests. The sanctions the U.S. and its European allies have imposed on Russia after it annexed Crimea had little impact on Moscow’s foreign policy decisions. In Syria, Russia made a military intervention to boost the regime of ...

The Reserve Bank of India’s biannual Financial Stability Report has once again flagged the fact that risks to the banking sector remain worryingly “high”. That the risks have stayed “elevated due to continuous deterioration in asset quality, low profitability and liquidity,” in the central bank’s assessment, is cause for concern. Given the central role commercial lenders have in the financial system — serving to harness public savings and direct the flow of crucial credit to the most productive industrial and infrastructure sectors — any systemic risk to the banking industry has the potential to ripple across the entire economy. There has been no perceptible improvement in the health of domestic banks, even six months after the RBI’s previous report had highlighted the sector’s high vulnerability on account of the increase in capital requirement and worsening asset quality, spotlighting the need for urgent policy interventions. Some measures have been initiated and others are in the p...

That V.K. Sasikala was nominated general secretary of the AIADMK by its general council is no surprise. Her elevation from party worker to party head has followed days of demands and entreaties from senior AIADMK leaders that she take up the job. Two things counted in her favour. She was the closest friend of Jayalalithaa, something that means a lot in the personality cult-based structure of the AIADMK. As importantly, any other choice would have divided the party into fractious factions. Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, the only other possible contender, himself backed Ms. Sasikala. As did most other party leaders, including prominent ministers, who rely on their caste bases for popular support. However, it is doubtful whether the AIADMK rank and file is really enthused by the choice — a fact that will have a bearing on the future of the party. It is not surprising that Ms. Sasikala lacks popular appeal. Over the last two decades, her influence over the party and State politics has b...

nspicuous gestures of reconciliation between nations to heal the deep emotional wounds of wars will have connotations that go beyond the symbolic. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, through his visit to Pearl Harbour this week, and U.S. President Barack Obama, with his homage at the peace memorial at Hiroshima earlier in May, have undertaken this bold and difficult journey on behalf of their peoples more than 70 years after atrocities were committed against each other during World War II. That so much time should have been lost in both instances to put the painful past behind them only speaks to the powerful presence of nationalist sensibilities that invariably distort the moral force of reconciliation. That this should have occurred only now, despite the enduring economic engagement of several decades between Washington and Tokyo, merely underscores their ticklish nature and the strong political overtones involved. In the case of Japan, the conservatives have long regarded any attem...

Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party was voted to power with a majority of its own in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Opposition parties have been trying to find an issue that would resonate with the people, identify a rallying point that would put the Narendra Modi government at the Centre on the defensive. But when such an issue did crop up after Mr. Modi announced the demonetisation of high-value notes on November 8, opponents of the BJP found themselves unprepared and unable to tap into the public resentment at the seemingly unnecessary pain caused by the shortage of cash. The demonetisation exercise did far more than divide the Opposition parties: it left them confused on the approach to be taken against the government. They were unable to fault the stated aims of the move: to curb black money, flush out counterfeit notes from the economy, and thereby curb terror funding. And when Mr. Modi sought 50 days to ease the cash flow, his opponents had no choice but to wait it out. Other t...

Days after a senior Pakistani General suggested that India should shun its “enmity” with Pakistan and join the $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project, the Chinese foreign ministry has called the offer a “goodwill gesture”, exhorting India to take it up. At face value, the suggestion is odd. India has no dialogue with Pakistan at present, and has opposed the project, bilaterally with China “at the highest level” as well as at the UN. Relations with China have deteriorated considerably since President Xi Jinping’s visit to Pakistan to announce the project in April 2015. Initially, New Delhi sought to play down its significance, as it was made just weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to China, and the government would have hoped to dissuade Beijing from pushing the more objectionable projects that run through disputed territory. However, not only has the corridor taken shape rapidly, China and Pakistan have been drawn into a closer embrace, with Pakistan inv...

The progressive changes introduced by the Centre to the rules governing grant of passports were long overdue. They simplify, in great measure, the paperwork needed for an Indian citizen to get the document. In order to screen applications to prevent impersonation, some of the earlier rules may have made sense at some point of time, but over the years the bureaucratic impediments that the cumbersome requirements posed to genuine applicants were so severe that many had to knock on the doors of high courts for remedy. Some rules were targeted at women. The most specious form of harassment of women passport applicants related to those who were either separated or divorced. Even something as routine as renewing a passport without any change of name or detail or getting a passport in the name of a child was a laborious process, as passport officials insisted on either the father’s consent or demanded a divorce decree. Following the recommendations of an inter-ministerial committee comprisin...

The ongoing political crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a reminder of the country’s turbulent past. Since it became independent in 1960, no head of state has left office peacefully after an election. By refusing to hold an election, which was due in November, and clinging to power even after his term officially came to an end on December 19, Joseph Kabila, the President of the DRC, risks repeating the mistakes of his predecessors. Congo’s Constitution, which Mr. Kabila himself helped write after his 2006 election, bars the President from seeking a third term. But Mr. Kabila later changed his mind and sought to amend the rules to stay on in power. After failing in such attempts, he simply refused to hold elections, citing “logistical problems”. A court has allowed him to remain President until the next elections are held, which the ruling party says will only be in 2018. It is now evident that the President wants to delay the process for as long as possible. But the going i...

The successful test-firing of the long-range ballistic missile Agni-V for the fourth time is a significant step towards building a credible nuclear deterrence. With this test and the recent commissioning of the indigenously built nuclear submarine INS Arihant, India is inching towards creating a robust and world-class second-strike capability. For a nation sworn to no-first-use of nuclear weapons, a reliable second-strike capability is an absolute necessity. In the worst-case scenario, the country should have the ability to withstand an enemy nuclear strike on its key locations and launch a successful second strike. Agni-V rose up from a canister mounted on a truck stationed at Dr. Abdul Kalam Island, Odisha, and went up a few hundred kilometres before following a ballistic trajectory and splashing down near Australian waters, some 20 minutes after the launch. This was the fourth test of the Agni-V missile, but the second from a canister mounted on a road mobile launcher. With the fo...

The excellence of a school education system must be assessed by the creative individuals it produces. That principle can be the only meaningful guide for the Central Board of Secondary Education, as it once again tweaks its testing system to make the Class X Board examination  compulsory for all students from 2018 . It is wrong to believe that students in the CBSE system are not being assessed with sufficient rigour: the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) method that it follows is aimed at identifying learning difficulties periodically and instituting remedial measures, rather than raising stress with a make-or-break public examination at the secondary level. This philosophy helps students master various topics and discover their aptitude in the course of a year, eliminating the chances of a single rote-learning test that could produce an aberrant result. The gains of such a system should not be thrown away in the quest to bring about ‘uniformity’ in the Class X educa...

The European Union on Wednesday gave Warsaw a dressing down over concerns about the erosion of the rule of law in Poland. And with good reason. The conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) headed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, which runs the government, has repeatedly tinkered with and undermined the institutions of democracy in the country, progressively tightening its grip over them. The EU’s patience is running out, and it could eventually strip Poland of voting rights in the European Council, an unprecedented action. This is a reflection of grave concerns over the developments in Poland, especially the actions the PiS has taken since it came to power in October 2015 to control the Constitutional Tribunal, Poland’s highest court. In July, the EU made recommendations aimed at protecting the independence of the judiciary. These have been largely ignored. Examples of PiS action that have impacted judicial functioning include publishing judgments selectively (without which they do not have leg...

Income tax authorities on the trail of illegal acts of money exchange in commercial banks following the demonetisation are netting bigger fish than they may have expected. Investigations into the hoarding of new currency notes in the denomination of Rs. 2,000 have implicated not only mining barons and contractors, but also government officials and politicians. But with Wednesday’s searches in the residence and office premises of Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao (who has since been replaced) leading to the seizure of loads of cash and gold, expectations are that more high-profile personalities will come under the scanner of the enforcement agencies trying to grapple with diversion of currency notes by bank officials to those in need of converting their stockpiles of ill-gotten high-value currency notes. It is now clear that in the first few days after the demonetisation announcement, when government-imposed limits on withdrawals were in force, and people were queuing up be...

The blockade of the national highways leading to the Manipur valley, called by the United Naga Council (UNC), has been in place since November 1. This has severely affected life in the State, with shortages and escalating costs of essential supplies such as fuel and food, even as demonetisation has exacerbated problems. Blockades like this are not new to Manipur. In 2011, there was initially a hundred-day-plus blockade enforced by Kuki-led groups, and countered later by Naga groups, which together had a debilitating effect on life in Manipur. This time the blockade is in place to oppose the creation of new districts by the Okram Ibobi Singh government. On December 9 it issued a gazette notification for the creation of seven new districts by bifurcating seven (of a total of nine) districts. This decision had as much to do with long-pending demands — in particular, for a new Kuki-majority district to be carved out of the larger Senapati hill district — as with easing administrative acce...

The coming together of Russia, Turkey and Iran to discuss a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis is a welcome development. That they decided to go ahead with Tuesday’s Moscow summit despite the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, the previous day, demonstrates their commitment to stay the course, something that was missing in previous efforts. The summit also marks a shift in Russia’s approach, which initially involved negotiations with the United States about possible diplomatic options for Syria. Washington has been kept out of both the deliberations on the Aleppo evacuations and the Moscow conference. The last time Russia and the U.S. reached an agreement, in September 2016, there had been great hope that they could mentor a sustainable ceasefire. But within days of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announcing the deal, the American-led coalition killed dozens of Syrian soldiers. Though the U.S. later “regretted” the strike, the peace process had ...

It is hard now to remember a time when German Chancellor Angela Merkel was not in the thick of a political storm in Europe. However, Monday’s suspected terror strike in Berlin that claimed at least 12 lives along with a spate of incidents in July, all with a bearing on Germany’s liberal immigration policies, present a qualitatively different challenge to Europe’s most powerful politician. As she seeks election for a fourth term next September, Ms. Merkel’s political and diplomatic acumen could be put to the toughest test yet in a world still coming to grips with the implications of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union (EU) and the U.S. presidential election result. Her measured approach to the deepening debt crisis in the eurozone saw her being pilloried by some of her conservative colleagues as indulgence of a profligate Greece, even as the German-backed multilateral mission that negotiated the bailouts was greeted by angry Greek protesters carrying placards bearing the swastik...

In November, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Urjit Patel, said there was a ‘confluence of thought’ in the government and the central bank to deal with black money by removing existing Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes as legal tender. Now, just about ten days before the deadline to deposit these bank notes into accounts, a similar confluence of ideas has led to a stunning decision to make it harder for people to do so. The new caveats, announced on Monday, restricting deposits over Rs.5,000 (roughly $70) are not just difficult to fathom but also constitute an unfair change in the rules of the game. Those opting to disclose unaccounted income under the new amnesty scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, face no restriction on depositing old notes. But anyone depositing Rs.5,000 or more into a bank account will have to satisfactorily explain to two bank officials why this was not done earlier. However, the Finance Minister has suggested that such explanations will not be requ...

That the winter session would be washed out had been clear for a while. With the Opposition parties mustering all their disruptive tactics to stall the functioning of both Houses, insisting on maximalist demands on just how the debate on demonetisation should be structured, hopes for any substantive work had diminished. In the event, the session also left a hysterical afterglow, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling a gathering in Gujarat that he had to speak his mind in a “jan sabha” (people’s meet) as the Opposition wouldn’t let him do so in Parliament; and Rahul Gandhi, vice-president of the Congress party, complaining that he was not allowed to make earth-shattering disclosures on the floor of the House, but then keeping them close to his chest outside. With theatrics such as these, both the Government and the Opposition have left a question hanging in the politically charged air: what was the point? What did either side gain by bringing Indian parliamentary democracy’s most d...

Al most five decades after India first formulated its National Education Policy, the Ministry for Human Resource Development appears to be gearing up for another revision to this policy document, and not a moment too soon. The state of education, particularly in the critical primary and pre-primary years, is far from satisfactory. Since the early 2000s, successive governments kept up momentum on a sustained investment push into schools in a bid to resolve what was viewed as a supply-side problem. As   The Hindu ’s recent series on primary education, Learning Deficit, highlighted, it was hoped that through this effort children in elementary education would be provided with classrooms, uniforms, textbooks and other teaching materials, and a larger contingent of teachers. Thus, this approach hoped to tackle low enrolment rates. Led by government schools, public investment in education helped raise the gross enrolment ratio from 81.6 per cent of children in the 6-14 age group in 2000 ...