Panchayat

Proxy Village Governance: The Pradhan Pati Problem in India's Democracy

It has been formally recognised in the Report of the Advisory Committee on Women Pradhans, Transforming Women’s Representation and Role in Panchayati Raj Institutions: Efforts to Eliminate Proxy Participation, which recorded that elected women representatives are often “represented by their husbands or male relatives” and recommended the imposition of stringent and exemplary penalties to curb such practices.

Students Must Study; But They Must Also Ask Questions and not Ignore Injustice

When the university community itself has not succeeded in resolving many serious problems confronting higher education, on what moral basis should students simply be asked to remain silent and trust the system?

The Ganga Water Treaty Needs More Than Renewal: It Needs Reinvention

The treaty that once symbolized diplomatic success should now become a model for climate-resilient hydro-diplomacy. The river has changed, the climate has changed, and the needs of both nations have changed. The treaty must change with them.

From Farm Chickens to Cockroaches: Why South Asia’s Gen Z Is So Restive

Until the region’s economies produce jobs, and its ministers produce respect, at the pace they produce graduates, South Asia’s Gen Z will keep finding new, and increasingly desperate, ways to be heard

More on Education and Gen Z Voices

The General Staff and the learning of military wives

The COVID-19 lockdown ruminations continue. Lounging around one lockdown day, I got to wondering about this brilliant idea of the General Staff, of getting down to training all army and, by extension, all defence forces' wives

What ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement means for India and South Asia

The institutional murder of George Floyd achieved what even a global pandemic could not -  it created a furor against systemic inequalities in the United States that regularly devalues the lives of the marginalized

Live in the present

How green was my valley;

Welcome to India, a speed breaker country!

Have you ever seen an Indian walk? They walk with a peculiar jerk (not insinuating anything but merely describing our gait) which is unusual, but unique to each region

A prayer for forgiveness

As I look up at the sky

No matter, if we're Black or White

Why am I White not Yellow, Brown or Black

Indian Navy undertakes ecological conservation programmes

On World Environment Day, June 5, 2020, the Indian Navy announced how it has maintained a steadfast focus on a sustainable future while integrating energy efficiency and environment conservation within its operational and strategic roles

Hypocrisy

If love of Self is, indeed, supreme

Life in the time of coronavirus in Bangladesh - and elsewhere

Humanity has been suffering from an unprecedented attack from coronavirus. From beggar to billionaire, everybody is affected in myriad ways. Every country has stretched its full resources and energy to combat COVID-19

Why terrorism eludes definition

Indeed the word terrorism is one of the most frequently used terms like any other common offenses

Can we return to the times of harmony and love?

'When our minds want to languish in the  forever And, our souls in the search for the elusive truth,'

'How healthy this soil is today is how healthy we will be': Sadhguru at Global Landscapes Forum

Speaking on the need for urgent action to restore degraded soil and accelerate the impact of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, Sadhguru, Founder, Isha Foundation delivered his video message at the GLF Bonn Digital Conference 2020 here today

India's opposition has a duty to save its institutions from disempowerment

Delivering a special message in August 1950 to the US Congress, then President Harry S. Truman said, “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”

'Lockdown should prepare us for the next global crisis, including climate crisis'

There is a strong linkage between climate change and global peace and governments and society should introspect during the present pandemic to change not only unsustainable lifestyles but move steadily towards a carbon-neutral living and all aspects of human activity, noted environmentalist and climate-change activist Rajendra Shende, said

How a sustainable lifestyle can help overcome COVID-19 pandemic

Almost 45 years ago, when I was a student in the US at the University of Florida, I wondered whether because of rampant use of modern medicine mankind was doing a disservice to itself by hindering the evolutionary process