2025

Letter to the Readers
India

[fond noir][blanc]TRIBUTEblanc]fond noir]
April 15, 2025
It was a poignant moment last evening when many of us who knew Anil Chaudhury for more than four decades bade him final good bye at Nigambodh Ghat. Among those who were present to watch his body consigned to flames were friends, family, relatives, and many grassroots activists whom Anil had mentored over the years.
When I joined the JNU campus, Anil was a visible face as a SFI leader; in fact, he went on to become the General (…)

My Lords, please don

ABSTRACT
The legality of child testimony is a critical issue that needs serious attention and therefore demands to strike a balance between sensitivity and legal scrutiny. In serious cases relating to abuse, custody, and violent crimes children often serve as witnesses but questions regarding Their growing minds, unclear memory, and tendency to be influenced by others make it difficult to judge how true their statements are. The Supreme Court in The State of Madhya Pradesh v. Balveer Singh (…)

These days, if an option is put to Muslims to choose between security and reservation in government contracts, what may be their choice? Most probably, safety and security would be preferred first, not the reservation. Parliamentary Affair Minister Kiren Rijiju while slamming the Congress party over the issue of Muslim reservation in Karnataka in the Parliament at the same time the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), under heavy police security and drone surveillance, demolished the home (…)

On April 13, India

Ageing is a biological phenomenon that potentially brings variety of cellular, physical and mental changes over the time. It is a complex multi-factorial process, where several factors may interact simultaneously. Age

Saturday, April 19, 2025
by Dr. Gyan Pathak
Informal employment in the total employment in India remains almost stagnant at around 90 per cent since 2014, according to a latest ILO report. It was worse in 2024 than the global average of 58 per cent, Asia Pacific average of 66 per cent, and worse than neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
The ILO report titled

Abstract
The Cold war saw not only the struggle between East and West but also within the United Nations Security Council. Here, the Soviet Union and United States of America had their actions frozen by their reciprocal veto power. Since the end of Cold War in 1990s, most international attention has been focused on the use of force outside the parameters of the United Nations Charter. While attempts have been made to justify actions in Kosovo and Iraq based on evolving customary norms of (…)

Notwithstanding the retreat by Trump, the full-blown trade war between two economic powerhouses, the USA and China, would go on, and it would be extremely hazardous to predict the outcome. The overwhelming majority of economics mavens, however, concur that there would be no winner in this chaotic and insane trade war, and the question is which country would suffer most. This writer, being not an economist, will refrain from commenting on economic fallouts except quoting the perceptive and (…)