News

As Andhra Pradesh chief minister pursues his obsession with building a world-class capital city, his land pooling method draws ire of farmers, conservationists A village in the fertile Tullur block in Andhra Pradesh. Land from 25 such villages and four hamlets will be pooled in for the new capital OVER A DECADE ago, during his two-term tenure as chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, Nara Chandrababu Naidu had assiduously built up the image of Hyderabad as a globally known IT hub and one of the most sought after destinations for high-tech firms. Following bifurcation of the state in June 2014, the city has been serving as the joint capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and will become Telangana’s in 10 years time. A bitter Naidu now wants his new capital to outsmart that of Telangana, or so it seems. Ever since assuming office, Naidu has been pushing for laws, issuing notifications and holding meetings with international firms for establishing a glitzy world-class...

As the beef traders’ strike continues, lions, tigers and other carnivores in Mumbai zoos now get chicken as their primary feed. Keepers worry about the animals losing strength Palash, the largest tiger at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai, still paces his cage for the hour

On the eve of the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and India on April 1, 1950, the Chinese Ambassador to India, Le Yucheng, in written answers provided to a set of questions posed by Srinivasan Ramani,  emphasised the need for a renewal of China-India ties in tune with the realities of the 21st century. Excerpts follow. Later, in an interaction in Chennai, the

If the West genuinely wants to fight terror and promote a peaceful future in the troubled West Asia region, it will have to confront its selective silence and dual standard on the serious challenges that threaten the region today.

For a country starved of successes at the individual level in world sport, Saina Nehwal’s feat of becoming the first Indian woman shuttler to reach the No.1 position in the world is a stupendous achievement. The 25-year-old Nehwal — a resident of Hyderabad — achieved this mark during the course of the 2015 India Open Super Series badminton tournament. Nehwal eventually won, defeating former world champion

The history of India’s socialist parties — from which the various Janata Parivar entities emerged — is one of splits and mergers. If in the past its leaders, opinionated, fractious, colourful and intensely political as they are, lined up behind Congress rebels to form Central governments in 1977 and 1989, some of them also boosted the numbers of BJP-led NDA governments in 1999 and 2014. In 1996, when the minority

For the Aam Aadmi Party which claims the rationale for its very being is ushering in more democratic and transparent governance, the  current troubles  at the top levels of the leadership present an existential threat. While Delhi Chief Minister and national convener of the party Arvind Kejriwal was able to easily win support where it immediately mattered — among the MLAs in Delhi and among the members of the national executive — the issues raised by the dissident duo of Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav would not go away quickly. What the AAP sees as problems in the Indian political system — corruption, absence of transparency and lack of accountability — now seem very much a part of its own self. A  series   of   exposés  have shown up the AAP as suffering from the very ills it attacks in other parties. From  horse-trading  and giving the party ticket to persons of  dubious background  to  autocratic decision-making  and ...

If there were any doubts about Australia’s preeminence in cricket’s world order, those were ruthlessly banished at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday. A fifth World Cup crown in 11 editions — each achieved in a different continent, between 1987 and now — confers an aura of supremacy as nothing else. Consider that Australia has made two other finals at the game’s quadrennial showpiece event, and you get a sense of a country that produces dynamic, match-winning cricketers who pass on bloody-mindedness from generation to generation. Michael Clarke’s men were slight favourites at the start of the current edition; hardly anyone in cricket circles picks against Australia in big tournaments, especially outside the subcontinent. Given the side was likely to play a majority of its matches at home — including the semifinal and final at Sydney and Melbourne respectively, stomping grounds where it has historically been hard to beat — it was no surprise that the smart money was on Au...

Forty years after returning as a Peace Corps volunteer to a village in Tamil Nadu, the writer finds religions in harmony, borrowing customs and cultural norms from one another The hotel manager was politely incredulous. Wouldn’t I like a car or an auto rickshaw to take me on a tour of Thanjavur’s rural areas? No, thank you. As a Peace Corps volunteer, albeit returning after 40 years, I was determined to get to my village in the traditional way — by bicycle. And in my village garb: a brightly coloured lungi. A few minutes later, I took off on the best bike the hotel could find, a rickety Raleigh that might have dated from my Peace Corps days. The old path through the rice paddies was now a motorable road, but with only the occasional motorcycle or tractor to disturb my peaceful ride into years past. Reality soon intervened. About the time the bike pedal fell off, a light rain began to fall. I was four miles short of Sholapuram, my destination, and the only shelter nearby was...

Government has expressed its inability to adopt suggested technical measures to curb animal casualties The state government, which in 1991 promised to decongest the stretch, has not been able to keep its promise (Photo: S H Patgiri) The Assam government has issued an affidavit stating the hurdles in complying with a directive of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that asked for the installation of sensor-operated and automatic traffic barriers in the Kaziranga National Park. These barriers can help to control the movement of traffic on the traffic corridor on National Highway 37 that passes between the national park and has been criticised for animal casualties. In the affidavit submitted before the principal bench of NGT on March 12, Assam had informed the tribunal of the steps taken by it in response to the latter’s directive of February 5. This was when the NGT had directed the state government to ensure fixation of sensor operated automatic barriers and speed check came...

NEW DELHI: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been selected for the Gandhi Peace Prize for 2014 for its contribution to the country's development through space technology and satellite-based services. The award, comprising Rs one crore and a citation, was decided after the jury for the prize met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening. Chief Justice of India HL Dattu, Leader of the single largest Opposition Party in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, senior Member of Parliament L K Advani and Gopalkrishna Gandhi are other members of the jury. The Gandhi Peace Prize for social, economic and political transformation through non-violence was instituted in 1995. Some of its previous winners are Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Julius K Nyerere, Baba Amte, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan and Ramkrishna Mission. ISRO, a government of India organisation, is engaged in making space techno...

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With Kerala registering the lowest growth rate of population in the last one decade, the state is all set to achieve "zero population growth" in the coming years. While the national rate of growth of population in the last 10 years is 17.6 per cent, the growth rate of state population during the period is 4.9 per cent, the lowest rate among Indian states, according to the latest Economic Review by the state Planning Board. "The population growth trend shows that Kerala is moving towards zero population growth or towards negative growth," the Review for the year 2014, placed in the just concluded assembly session, said. Quoting the final data published by the Directorate of Census, it said the state's population as on March 2011 was 3,34,06,061, which was 3,18,41,374 in 2001. Of the total state population, 1,60,27,412 (48 per cent) are males and 1,73,78,649 (52 per cent) are females, it said. The report reveals that six southern districts - I...

Photo: Jasmeet Khanuja The Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana was introduced to provide partial wage compensation during pregnancy, but various issues plague its implementation The latest official figures indicate that India is well short of meeting the Millennium Development Goals that pledged to reduce the country’s maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by three quarters and the infant mortality rate (IMR) by two-thirds. The Sample Registration System (SRS), 2013, records MMR at 167 per 1,00,000 live births and IMR at 40 per 1,000 live births with a majority of these infants dying within seven days of birth. India’s high MMR and IMR are partly due to delayed diagnosis and limited access to health care. Additionally, rest during or after pregnancy is not an option for most women who are unorganised workers. According to the District Level Household Survey 3, nearly a quarter of women in India do not receive any antenatal care and over 50 per cent do not receive any postna...

Land-grabs for urban infrastructure and real estate are being promoted to bring investment and employment for a few, at the cost of lives and livelihoods of many Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claims that the  Land Ordinance 2014  was promulgated to bring 13 Acts within the purview of the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, before the six- month deadline to include them ran out on December 31, 2014. Despite controversy, the latest Amendment Bill  approved by the Lok Sabha , and currently facing a logjam in the Rajya Sabha, makes minor modifications to the Ordinance. Both replace acquisition for ‘private company’ with ‘private entity,’ that includes a “proprietorship, partnership, company, corporation, non-profit organisation or other entity under any law for the time being in force.” Exemptions from social impact assessments (SIAs) for all projects and consent provisions for private companies (80 per cent of land owners) and Public-Private Pa...

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently launched Twitter Samvad, a service that allows people to receive tweets by government leaders and agencies as text messages over mobile phones, it was a striking testimony of how quickly the social media has evolved to a position of being perceived as a communication channel for the officialdom. The San Francisco-based Twitter, which was not even around a decade back, made its name when it became an invaluable tool for those protesting against the regimes in Iran and Egypt to organise themselves. These protests, which took place at the dawn of the social media age, even came to be referred to as the “Twitter Revolutions”. This was not a deliberately cultivated tag. In fact, as the book Hatching Twitter states, the social media network’s co-founders wanted to steer clear of such a narrative. One of them is quoted as saying, in the backdrop of the protests in Iran, “We are not standing with, or against, the protesters. We just love this use of ...