Umpires mediate between India’s players Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill and Pakistani players Pakistan’s Haris Rauf, Pakistan’s Mohammad Nawaz during the Asia Cup cricket match at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, United Arab Emirates, on September 21, 2025. | Photo Credit: AP In his much-quoted essay The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell wrote, “Serious sport has nothing to … Read more
The Almatti dam dispute, which had shaken political and inter-State relations in the late 1990s and early 2000s in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, has resurfaced in Telangana. Recently, Karnataka decided to raise the height of the dam, claiming that it aligns with the 2013 Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II (KWDT-II) Award and utilises “excess water flowing … Read more
When the Supreme Court of India upheld the validity of criminal defamation in Subramanian Swamy (2016), reasoning that reputation is part of the right to life, it may not have anticipated the difficulties of this position. On September 22, 2025, during criminal defamation proceedings against the Foundation for Independent Journalism, Justice M.M. Sundresh of the … Read more
On May 3, 2023, ethnic violence erupted in Manipur, plunging the State into one of the longest-running internal conflicts in Independent India. Today, there is no resolution — only an uneasy silence, broken by sporadic violence, and bureaucratic inertia. Manipur remains a footnote, its crisis relegated to the periphery of national discourse. The extension of … Read more
Issue of defamation The suggestion by a sitting judge, that it is time for decriminalising slur to stem the proliferation of defamation suits, needs to be heeded by all (Front page, September 23). With political practices and parliamentary decorum plumbing ever new lows, it has become commonplace to convert seemingly public interest litigation to ‘publicity … Read more
Vaccination is one of the most effective and cost-efficient public health measures, saving millions of lives. India’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) is the world’s largest, and annually vaccinates 2.6 crore infants and 2.9 crore pregnant women. It contributed to a decline in under-5 mortality from 45 to 31 per 1,000 live births between 2014 and … Read more
When the state of Israel was declared in Palestine on May 14, 1948, the U.S. recognised it in just 11 minutes. In the years since, most UN members extended recognition to the Jewish nation, which became a UN member in 1949. When the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) declared a state of Palestine in 1988, much … Read more
As both a trans woman and a woman, I have come to understand that policy is not an abstract document drafted in bureaucratic chambers; it is the scaffolding of our lives. For gender minorities, whose existence is often questioned or ridiculed, the absence of inclusive, enforceable, and humane policy is not just a governance gap; … Read more
