To the East India Company and the British Raj that followed it, mapping was an obsession. The empires that came before them, such as the Mughal and the Marathas, did not engage in cartography in quite the same way. The British needed to study the topography of what was to them very foreign territory in … Read more
Chief Minister Jayalalithaa signs papers at Fort St. George in Chennai on May 16, 2011. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Recently, several prominent personalities paid tributes to former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on her 77th birth anniversary. I had followed Jayalalithaa’s public life from the beginning. She, like me, was also once a resident … Read more
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action is one of the most comprehensive global blueprints for advancing women’s rights. India’s progress on gender equality stands as a testament to sustained policy efforts, grassroots movements, and the resilience of women and girls. The Beijing meeting, in 1995, brought together world leaders and 17,000 delegates from 189 … Read more
President Donald Trump used the bully pulpit of his first joint address to Congress to emphasise, among other priorities, his administration’s intent to up the ante on the trade war that began with the U.S. slamming India, China, Canada and Mexico with tariffs of 25% or higher. Amidst walkouts by numerous Democratic lawmakers, he flagged … Read more
‘Research across the world finds that organisations also greatly benefit from women in leadership roles’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Once again, the world will celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2025 and companies will attempt to showcase steps taken toward the inclusion and the increase of women in the workforce. Yet, the lived … Read more
The call at an all-party meeting chaired by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, in Chennai on Wednesday (March 5, 2025), to freeze the strength of the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for 30 years beyond 2026 might seem like pushing away a pressing problem into the distant future. The challenges in 2056, when delimitation … Read more
India and quality research I write this as an INSA Senior Scientist and Adjunct Professor, National Institute for Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. I was also a former Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Ropar. This is with reference to the report, “India to go past U.S. in scientific publications by 2029, says Minister” (Inside pages, … Read more
Recently, Norway’s Parliament issued a formal apology for its assimilation policies targeting the Sami, Kven, and Forest Finn peoples. These policies, known as Norwegianisation, were implemented between the 1850s and 1960s to suppress indigenous languages and cultures. Alongside the apology, the government proposed measures to address ongoing discrimination, such as protecting indigenous languages and monitoring inclusion … Read more
‘The Indian IT sector, which has long thrived on cost-effective labour-led service models, now faces a reality where AI can easily replace repetitive, low-value tasks that were once its competitive advantage’ | Photo Credit: Reuters DeepSeek, a Chinese company, has shaken up the global tech industry and stock markets with its low-cost artificial intelligence (AI) … Read more
When an acronym was coined to refer to a newly-created cadre of health workers for the country, as political gestures are wont to, care was taken to ensure the word invoked a sense of promise. The government decided to call them Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA in Hindi means hope). In 2005, the Centre launched … Read more