A trial court’s verdict in Kolkata’s RG Kar hospital rape-murder case has once again brought to the fore the concept of ‘rarest of rare’. The court sentenced the convict to a life term instead of giving the death sentence that the Central Bur
India’s diplomatic skills will be tested in considerable measure this new year, in the neighbourhood and far, as well. The test gains even greater importance because it has consequences for the country’s security as well. While Prime Minister Nar
What does the Finance Ministry do? What role does the Home Ministry perform? What are the functions of the External Affairs Ministry? What is the purpose of the Defence Ministry? Put these questions to any lay citizen, and one can expect a fairly acc
The Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas axis and all those others pitted against Israel in the ongoing conflict in West Asia have demanded that Israel should vacate the territories it has occupied; territories they that they say belong to the Palestinians. If Israe
Of late, the Modi government has made a renewed push to further its relationship with two important regional groupings, the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU). While New Delhi has been constantly engaging with several individual member-co
The India-Malaysia relationship has come a long way since 2019, when Malaysia’s the then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad ruined the ties with his uncalled-for remark on Kashmir—he said that ‘New Delhi had invaded and occupied Kashmir’. He ha
Not many of us who periodically visit important temples in the country and pay our obeisance to the gods and goddesses consecrated there, bother to understand the architecture of those temples. If we were to do so, we would be left dazzled by the var
Nepal has had more than a dozen governments since the monarchy was formally abolished in that country in 2008. Prime Ministers have come and gone before they had the time to settle down or had enough time to leave behind far-reaching impacts for the
Every now and then, especially during election seasons but even otherwise, the subject of providing reservations based on religion is raised by somebody or the other, whether in the political field or outside. On occasions, a few state governments ev
Two interesting bits of news filtered in towards the close of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. One, was that an attempt to influence the polls through the misuse of artificial intelligence by a foreign agency had been foiled. And two, was that an organi