Article
Why Shutting Down Reserves to Prevent Covid Transmission to Tigers is a Questionable Move
A blanket ban could endanger wildlife and human livelihoods. India must seize opportunity to innovate to live with and reduce the risk from the inevitable future contagion * India’s Project Tiger is a success by any measure. Our 51 tiger reserves now boast of at least 3,000 tigers. More and more Indians flock to safari […]
Article
The World After Covid-19: Unless We Are Alert, The Pandemic Could Become The Last Nail In Individualism’s Coffin
For centuries, individualism or the notion that every human individual has intrinsic value has underlined ideas about societal organisation, the economy and justice. Recently, however, the primacy of the individual’s inalienable rights and freedoms has come under immense pressure. Individualism in the West originated from the Enlightenment. It believes in the moral worth of the […]
Article
CSOs: Mirrors, not just handmaidens
When a government limits the freedom of NGOs to criticize, as seems to be happening now, it prevents them from doing what it needs them to do. The world over, it is understood that civil society organizations (CSOs) provide checks and balances to counter the unbridled power of the state and any abuse of that […]
Article
Payments for Ecosystem Services
It is clearly time for a new social contract with the farmer and the tribal, if not as a moral imperative certainly as a strategic one. Two symbols come to mind immediately when we look at India as it is instead of through the aspirational prism of an India shining or poised. One: the disenfranchised […]
Article
Hegde Scores again – The CM’s nominee is appointed state Janata president
Karnataka chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde’s bad patch may finally be over. The “unanimous election” of his nominee, M.P. Prakash, as the new Karnataka Pradesh Janata Party president on 5 October has proved the chief minister’s supremacy in the state unit in spite of the challenge from a vocal dissident group. View PDF
Article
HUMOUR AND THE PRESIDENCY – A recent conference takes a serious look at how funny US presidents have always tried to be
Henry Kissinger, as us secretary of State, once asked his security guard what he would do if someone tried to kidnap him. “Don’t worry,’’ the guard replied, “we won’t let them take you alive.” View PDF