The next RBI Governor's job will be larger and far beyond mere management of targets

Research shows that getting ahead requires constructive criticism. But many women don’t get those frank assessments.

Minister says UDAY scheme will itself help save Rs 1.8 lakh crore annually within next three years

Rafael Nadal says Novak Djokovic will need to be vaccinated to keep playing if the governing bodies of tennis make coronavirus shots obligatory once they become available. Nadal told the Spanish newspaper La Voz de Galicia this week that Djokovic and all players will have to follow the rules when tennis eventually returns to action. Nadal said no one can be forced to take the vaccine and everyone should be free to make their choices, but all players will have to comply if tennis officials require vaccination to travel and to protect everyone on the tour. Then Djokovic will have to be vaccinated if he wants to keep playing tennis at the top level, Nadal said. The same for me. Everyone will have to follow the rules, just like now we have to stay at home. Djokovic recently said he was against taking a vaccine for the coronavirus even if it became mandatory to travel. He later said he was open to changing his mind. If the ATP or the International Tennis Federation obligates us to take the

: Chief Minister of Puducherry V Narayanasamy on Saturday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to appoint an expert committee to help states overcome the fiscal situation in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown. He told reporters here that he had written a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to constitute immediately the expert committee to go into the poor fiscal condition of the states during the current lockdown and help mobilise funds to meet their commitments. The expert committee should be given a time-frame of one week to come out with its recommendations as to how the Centre could help the states wriggle out of the fiscal crisis and how States could rise to the exigency, he said. Narayanasamy hoped the Prime Minister would consider his suggestion and take appropriate action. "I am speaking candidly and making the suggestion for all states which no BJP-ruled state Chief Ministers will express,", Narayanasamy a former Central Minister, said. Already, he said, ...

It is said that life is more about risk management rather than exclusion of risk. 

Now the Big Oil earnings season has been and gone, serious questions are being asked about whether the future of exploration and production will involve the super majors in their current form.

Research shows that getting ahead requires constructive criticism. But many women don’t get those frank assessments.

Debadityo Sinha discusses how a coal power plant managed to receive environmental clearance by giving false information, which the National Green Tribunal finally overturned.

Deprived of their lands, unable to find any kind of work, the female sharecroppers of Singur are today looking at bleak days ahead. Government compensation may come, but it may be too little and a poor substitute for a life-sustaining livelihood. Aparna Pallavi has more.

The current shape of government is too distributed to tackle the scale and complexity of the rural employment guarantee. A National-level autonomous body should be created solely for implementing the NREGA, and this agency should have the necessary authority, in addition to the responsibility, to manage the implementation, says Trilochan Sastry.

S G Vombatkere writes his concluding opinion on the series on the proposed gigantic network of interlinked rivers.

The latest draft of the Water Policy is a clear improvement over the previous one, and appears to have taken on board many of the objections to earlier provisions. Still, much more should be done, writes Shripad Dharmadhikary.

In our system of criminal justice, the state takes up the responsibility to prosecute offenders on behalf of victims. Although public prosecutors are theoretically independent, in practice they face a number of improper influences. Bikram Jeet Batra surveys the prosecution system in India, and finds it in need of much change.

The Police Act Drafting Committee's term came to an end on 31 January. Any significant attempt to reform the Indian police must begin with the men at the bottom, the constabulary, not at the top. However, such changes would call for a struggle against the nature of Indian society itself, says former IPS officer K S Subramanian.

Our organically grown urban areas are very close to being the ideal mixed-land-use places that the West is now attempting to create. To leverage this phenomenon, there must be incentives to encourage development in the inner cities instead of in sprawling suburbs, writes Madhav Pai.

Apathetic, inefficient government and mindless pursuit of Western consumerist ideals by a few have brought India's marginalized millions to a state where the judiciary has to intervene to enforce the most basic of rights. Often, without effect, as Sakuntala Narasimhan finds.

Chitta Behera points out that the otherwise progressive draft Right to Information Act 2004 (prepared by the National Advisory Council) could do with some additional fine-tuning while still under review within the offices of our government.

India is well on its way to a low-carbon economic future, but its global image suffers because we lack the public discourse to bolster our argument, unlike China and the Western countries, writes Darryl D'Monte.

The government's focus on solar energy is driven by the need to demonstrate a commitment to renewable energy. But equity too is vital for the success of the National Solar Mission, writes Sujatha Byravan.

A new scheme launched by PM Narendra Modi envisages development through a model in which every MP chooses a village to develop, with people’s participation. Vikas Jha looks at the numbers and realities to explore the real needs of rural development at the panchayat level.

With the law of small numbers threatening to take over, we need a public discussion of the good life, a search for truth done by individuals in association with others, writes Rajesh Kasturirangan.

The decline of politics and of intellectual discourse is related to the struggle between politics and economics as the arbiter of the moral commons and the role of the developmental state in this fight, writes Rajesh Kasturirangan.

When river restoration translates merely into cosmetic beautification of its ‘front’, real estate and urban elite are the only ones to gain at the cost of the larger river ecology. Amruta Pradhan discusses the Sabarmati Riverfront Development project and others inspired by it to highlight the risks in the model.

In October 2014, a draft consultation paper from the Planning Commission detailed the many issues faced by India’s handloom sector and the failure of earlier schemes to solve the problems faced by weavers. Elizabeth Soumya summarises key points from the report.

The UPA Government is attempting to achieve consensus and amend the Office of Profit law to allow select legislators to hold additional public offices. This is merely the climax of a larger trend, says Madabhushi Sridhar, of an already thin separation of power between executive and legislature, and of earlier efforts to dilute the Constitution.

Legislation to regulate and administer the country's water sector is a crying need, but the Draft National Water Framework Law recently submitted by the Alagh Committee is a disappointment. Shripad Dharmadhikary explains why.

The question foremost on the minds of both believers and sceptics now is whether AAP will be able to keep its lofty promises to the people. Subramaniam Vincent feels that this may not require rocket science, after all.

An Expert Group in the Planning Commission calls for a more development-led approach to people's resistance, and a renewed commitment by the State to the democratic system. K S Subramanian says a lot of people should read the report.

Total Sanitation Campaign, MGNREGS and other government schemes are unheard of among villagers at Dinesh Nagar, Assam who live with a perennial lack of food, pure water, and health amenities. Nilotpal Bhattacharjee wonders if they will ever find deliverance from despair.

Three million forest dwellers in Odisha are estimated to have been displaced since independence by various industrial and hydro-projects, among which the Upper Indiravati Hydro Project is one. Abhijit Mohanty brings us the story of three tribal settlements uprooted by it.

Direct Electro-Convulsive Therapy, banned in the west and some Indian states as a form of medical torture, is finding new advocates. Ethical psychiatrists must strongly disavow the practice, says Bhargavi Davar.

This time for public health and hygiene. Ramesh Menon interviews Bindeswar Pathak, the founder of Sulabh International Social Service Organisation.

The Indian experience in institutionalised mental help has not been civilising. The National Human Rights Commission had issued a condemnation of the state of mental hospitals as early as six years ago. Parul Sharma notes that misguided private counselling and the lack of richer case law have compounded victims' problems.

Why would the Government of India deny a job to an individual who carries a mutation in the DNA? There is prejudice in the Indian society against individual perceived as "sexual anomalies". Vaijayanti Gupta initiates an educational discussion on the biology of sex and sexual orientations.

HIV-positive children in Assam and their families need more than the usual measures of state support for their economic, medical and social needs. Ratna Bharali Talukdar reports.

The Railway Budget this year has been hailed for its pragmatic approach and emphasis on modernisation and customer experience. Tanvi Bhatikar raises a critical issue that needs to be addressed in order to deliver on those fronts.

Handing out non-biodegradable sanitary pads to rural school girls who have reached menarche will not address their menstrual hygiene issue. Clean and functional toilets with water supply, awareness about menstruation, economical and biodegradable pads and more is needed, finds Puja Awasthi.

27-year-old Ratnamma, a garment factory worker, was forced to deliver a baby on the streets of Bangalore. 20-year-old Gayathri was run over by the bus belonging to the Bangalore garment factory where she worked. Garment workers in Bangalore are caught in an exploitative web, reports Padmalatha Ravi.

The Centre gears up to take national control of the Kosi and Gandak and turn them into commercial waterways. Shripad Dharmadhikary and the Manthan team report on findings from a recent visit to the region.

Former Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Wednesday appealed to the state government to provide monetary relief of Rs 7,600 and 10 kilograms of rice to each jobless poor person, besides ensuring jobs to all MGNREGA card holders and bringing towns under the national labour scheme.

Migrant workers will no more be required to submit medical certificate while applying for police pass to travel to their home states, said city police commissioner Vishwas Nangare Patil on Friday.

The video has been captioned, 'When India's Persons with Disabilities decided to have some fun.'

Chief Economic Adviser K Subramanian said policy making in India happens throughout the year, coming up with a separate budget may only be a legal way to go about it.

This is the first sizable investment by SLP in India and reaffirms Jio’s technological capabilities and the potential of the business model, even in this Covid-19 world and beyond.

It further said that although 2020 is a lost year, in terms of trade, India can think long-term and build relations so that it can occupy the space vacated by China.

While the first instalment of the SGB 2020-21 series was open for subscription from April 20 to 24, the current issue will be open from May 11 to May 15.

Sania Mirza said that coaches need to be sensitive of the hormonal changes that girls go through while working with them.

Rafael Nadal said all tennis players will have to comply if officials require 'vaccination to travel' and to 'protect' everyone on the tour.

People across the world are talking about flattening the curve of COVID-19 but Shilpa Shetty, on the contrary, has informed her online family about a curve that need not be flattened.