Private reading rooms/libraries

Empty Classrooms, Crowded Reading Rooms and a Growing Educational Concern

Across Kashmir, the image of crowded reading rooms alongside empty classrooms should compel us to reflect on the direction our education system is taking. Reading rooms may help students prepare for examinations, but schools and colleges prepare them for life. 

Reforming Higher Education in India: Institutions Should Have Freedom to Innovate While Remaining Accountable

The future of Indian higher education may depend not on greater central control, but on creating autonomous institutions operating within a strong framework of accountability.

BIMSTEC’s Strategic Challenge to Pakistan: Geopolitical Recasting or Regional Fracture?

Pakistan’s absence is not without costs. Diplomatic exclusion is only one facet of the spectre that looms over the country: limited transit access, reduced prospects for integration into Bay-centric supply networks and weakened soft-power influences across the Indian Ocean littoral.

Proxy Village Governance: The Pradhan Pati Problem in India's Democracy

It has been formally recognised in the Report of the Advisory Committee on Women Pradhans, Transforming Women’s Representation and Role in Panchayati Raj Institutions: Efforts to Eliminate Proxy Participation, which recorded that elected women representatives are often “represented by their husbands or male relatives” and recommended the imposition of stringent and exemplary penalties to curb such practices.

More on Education and Gen Z Voices

India-USA healthcare partnership: Role of Indian origin physicians

There is no instant solution for India’s myriad problems. But by collaborating with the governments both nationally and at state levels, and working with the government and NGOs, physicians of Indian origin can make a huge difference

Ending child marriages: Raising the marriage age of women is not enough

The Bill will not help in eliminating child marriages as it has merely increased the age without addressing the major factors which contribute to child marriages

How to ‘invest in our planet’

The robber barons who gave us oil and climate change want to create new markets of carbon, new property in nature’s ecological services, reducing biodiversity and nature into financial assets to be owned and traded

Reminiscing yoga in the erstwhile Soviet Union

The impact of my father’s yoga service to the people around the USSR was such that our family was always showered with immense love from the Russians (aka people of the Soviet Union) that we can still feel in our hearts when we reminisce those days

Indian Coast Guard conducts counter-pollution exercise; Sri Lanka, Bangladesh Coast Guard also participate

During the sea exercise,  13 ships and 10 aircraft from the Indian Coast Guard and one aircraft from IAF (C-131), two ships from SACEP members states -- Sri Lankan Coast Guard and Bangladesh Coast Guard -- and 1 OSV from ONGC, assets from SCI and tugs from Mormugao Port Trust demonstrated containment cum marine spill recovery by side sweeping arms, deployment of booms and skimmers, streaming of single ship operated containment cum recovery system, firefighting drill, rescue operation, and demonstration of surface and air oil spill dispersant systems

Where has my Lucknow gone?

One good change that I saw in Lucknow was the introduction of e-rickshaws. According to guestimates, there are about 5,000 such e-rickshaws plying on Lucknow roads.

Gender equity must extend to transgenders as well

Despite many favourable developments, what transgenders face is systemic oppression, phobia, fear, bias and distrust. This keeps transgenders from living their simple lives as ordinary citizens

Sports has the power to unite: Let’s teach our children about peace before someone teaches them about hate

Can we rally support around South Asia and get friends and fans to raise their #WhiteCards for peace at the ICC event even as they root for their favourite teams

Sri Lanka should form a national government and stop depending on China

There is this accusation that Sri Lanka is governed like a family concern by the Rajapaksas. This impression should be removed

Missile mishap: India and Pakistan need long term risk-reduction measures

Though India and Pakistan showed great restraint to prevent any escalation, the missile episode has raised eyebrows among those who consider South Asia to be a 'nuclear flashpoint'

The hijab ban in India and the unnatural uniformity it seeks to enforce

The research relied upon by the petitioners, which was unceremoniously sidelined as being unauthentic and without proper credentials of the researchers, showed that head coverings are commonplace for most Hindu, Muslim and Sikh women outside their homes

Pakistan's politics of confrontation: Is it a lost game for Imran Khan?

It is, however, apparent that Imran Khan and his aides have forgotten the norms of political battles a long ago

Beyond borders: A tribute to Sara Suleri

Sara’s name is on Sapan’s Founding Charter calling on South Asian nations to institute soft borders and a visa-free South Asia

How to contain India’s TB pandemic

Unless the national programme for TB is made strong, we may end up well short of the desired impact

Need for bringing India's notorious bureaucracy to account

The BJP government has done better in preparing lists of those officers who are inefficient or corrupt