Issue 3

Where RSS Men Love Their Pork

The RSS and its Hindutva affiliates are making deep inroads into the many tribes and ethnic communities that make up the Northeast by trying to hoist, at least, 109 existing indigenous faiths in a strategic bid to counter evangelical Christianity.

Guru Mantra: This isn't the time for coalition government

"Right now the coalition that we are seeing is just about winning the election," says Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on Opposition's attempt to form a grand alliance against Modi government in the upcoming Lok Sabha Election

Collegium has to go, and it is just a matter of time before it does

The question whether the Supreme Court collegium should be dropped as a mechanism for appointing higher court judges has become redundant. Every day that passes points to this opaque process being completely incongruous with the democratic ideals of transparency and accountability that India aspires to.

Collegium has flaws, but that’s the cost of judicial independence

While there can be no getting away from the truth of these criticisms, the question we need to ask ourselves is whether they mean that the collegium system should be done away with?

Read India must come before Skill India

The recently released Annual Status of Education Report, India’s largest NGO-run yearly survey, paints a distressing picture of basic reading and arithmetic abilities of students: with 25 per cent of students completing Class 8 without any reading competency, and over 50 per cent unable to even divide numbers.

Sanatan Sanstha: A Hypnotic Attraction

The secretive organisation set up by hypnotherapist Jayant Balaji Athavale has been accused of serious crimes like murder and bomb blasts but remains popular among the youth for its ideology

Cults, religious sects are not a thing of the past

The tragic and inglorious end of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple, Osho’s Rajneeshpuram, Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo and other such associations across the world by no means implies that cults are a thing of the past

No country for an Asia Bibi

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue in Pakistan. In an environment of relative impunity, the state’s opportunistic appeasement of extremist groups dedicated to the implementation of the stringent laws encourages their use as a potent tool of persecution and prevents reasoned debate or reform.

Raman Singh’s development card didn’t turn the trick for adivasis

In the midst of the Maoist killing fields, the government built a skill city, an education hub, a multispeciality hospital and also set up a call centre. A one-time Maoist stronghold, Palnar turned into a ‘digital village’, hooked up to the world.

An Idea Eternal: The Billion Interpretations of Draupadi

Her character was shaped on the anvil of dharma by kings and rishis, executed by lesser men, honed by desire, and cheated by her own