business

Social media and young minds

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One of the most profound effects of social media on young minds is its impact on attention and concentration.  | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto While walking down the street, I noticed a five-year-old child sitting next to his mother, fully engrossed in his mother’s phone and scrolling through reels. It reminded me about my own … Read more

The broadcasting services regulation bill: A threat to digital freedom and innovation

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The Indian government has laid the groundwork for a legislative change in recent weeks that can drastically change the digital media landscape of the nation. Concerns regarding the government’s growing interference with media freedom and online expression have been sparked by the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, which seeks to place news content creators, including digital … Read more

Language harmony versus language power 

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The average city Indian speaks three or four languages and has a nodding acquaintance with a couple more. | Photo Credit: Getty Images My wife’s maternal grandparents were a Rajput and a Malayali. Her mother married an Andhra, her sister a Punjabi. Their son’s wife is Algerian, our son’s is a Scot. That should make … Read more

Identities and symbols: On Tamil Nadu and the ரூ

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Even as the ruling DMK government in Tamil Nadu engages in a political discourse with the BJP-led regime at the Centre over the delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies and the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), its use of the Tamil letter ‘Roo’ (‘ரூ’) instead of the Indian currency symbol ‘₹’ in the … Read more

A voluntary mandate: On the APAAR student ID

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The introduction of an Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) ID by the Ministry of Education, to digitise the academic transcripts of every student, aims to ensure a “single source of truth” for all their records throughout their life in the academic ecosystem in India. Linked with Aadhaar, APAAR is far from the first such … Read more

Letters to The Editor — March 15, 2025

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State Budget logo The use of the Tamil letter ‘Ru ‘ in the promotional logo for the Tamil Nadu Budget is a minor issue when compared to the fierce controversy over the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the three-language policy (Page 1, March 14). The central government must climb down from its adamant stand … Read more

A school closure that must be called out

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‘The order to close down the only Gondi-medium school in Maharashtra raises important questions’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto The order to close down the only Gondi-medium school in a village of Maharashtra raises important questions. The school was started in Mohgaon village in the Fifth Schedule area of the Gadchiroli district, in 2019, as … Read more

Identities and symbols: on Tamil Nadu and the ‘Roo’

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Even as the ruling DMK government in Tamil Nadu engages in a political discourse with the BJP-led regime at the Centre over the delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies and the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), its use of the Tamil letter ‘Roo’ (‘ரூ’) instead of the Indian currency symbol ‘₹’ in the … Read more

Modern day summitry, its perils and prospects

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Across the world, there is broad agreement, including in the area of politics and diplomacy, that a strong leader can be useful. The term, no doubt, carries more than one interpretation, but is generally taken to mean a leader who concentrates a great deal of power in his hands and dominates both a wide swathe … Read more