Letter from the Editor
One of the lesser-known areas of media responsibility is its relationship with the law. It is a relationship which is generally little understood, not having…
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My Years in an Indian Prison Mary Tyler
So much is being written about political prisoners in India these days, that the layman might succumb to the temptation of focusing more on the issue…
Garam hawa
India must construct an enlightened climate change policy ‘Food Prices set to rise as floods ruin crops’. ‘Prime Minister promises aid to flood victims’. Does…
Reading The Bar Codes
“UPON MY WORD: India’s prisons are stuck in a time warp Strange how time’s machine travels back and forth at warp speed. Two hundred and…
Gender Gag
Sexual harassment can be crude and overt or very subtle, but you know you are being sexually harassed when you experience it. Those around you…
Delhi University-Notes Of Discord
Delhi University is one of the few in the country to possess a full-fledged faculty of music. But for years now, the Music Department has…
Scholarship – Political Compulsions
Two experts on Soviet studies, both lecturers in major universities, were informed late last month by the University Grants Commission (UGC) that their applications for…
A Battle Supreme
Titled Judiciary: Attacks and Survival, the speech had been long in coming, the speaker delayed, first by an attack of diabetes in March and then…
Mysterious U-Turn
Although it is a blasphemous thought, it has cropped up in many a legal mind during the last few weeks: if bets were placed on…
Political Compulsion
Two experts on Soviet studies, both lecturers in major universities, were informed late last month by the University Grants Commission (UGC) that their applications for…
Prisoners – Fighting for A Cause
The salaried middle classes have time and again fallen prey to the Government’s more capricious economic decisions. But, one group that has suffered the most…
Jagannath Mishra-Cleared By The Court
The India-Rubber man, Jagannath Mishra, had done it again. For months, the Bihar chief minister’s political fate had hung in the balance while the Supreme…
Cheating The Hangman
Convicted killers Billa and Ranga were expected to make headlines last fortnight. Make news, they certainly did, but not the way everybody anticipated. Instead of…
Ends of Justice
So Ham-Handed and desperate for representatives of any stature in Assam has the Congress(I) become that it has jettisoned all concern for decorum and dignity…
Passing The Buck
Nearly two months after a shocked Parliament was rocked by the Nellie and Gohpur massacres and the bloodbath that had drenched Assam during February’s’ election…
Suppressing Dissent?
Every dissenter is in a minority of one, and K. Ashok Rao, 36, deputy manager in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), is discovering what it…
Hanging Fire
The Quality of justice seemed to be under tremendous strain last fortnight. At issue was the vexatious question of capital punishment. As usual, the shock…
Death Penalty – Snag In The Rope
Anticlimax has become the boon companion of the Supreme Court. When the court reopened on July 18 after its summer vacation, it was shadowed by…
Marching To Discovery
In the coolness of the early morning there is little traffic on National Highway 3. Outward bound from Nasik, the tar stretches infinitely in mottled…
Cleaning up our act
India is trying to do its bit on climate change At the Hamburg group of 20 summit on 7-8 July, diplomats toiled through most of…
Killing me Softly
Death is inevitable, but not in a gas chamber He took a deep breath of air. Once again he caught a strangeness on the wind,…
APOCALYPSE NOW
Forget global warming and focus on local warnings Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Muzaffarpur. Nine of the world’s ten most polluted cities…
Waterless World
How melting Himalayan glaciers and Chennai’s dry taps are connected Time was when ‘Glacial Speed’ used to mean ‘very, very slowly’. That has changed forever.…
The Air is Thick
On Earth Day, let’s look at what our politicians promise on air pollution The Good news is that both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress…