Daily Hindu Editorials

Narendra Modi’s visit signals India’s strategy to grow ties with Israel and Palestine separately Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Palestine underlines the delicate balance New Delhi has adopted in this long-standing and seemingly intractable conflict. India, which has been a champion of the Palestinian people’s national aspirations, has built strong ties with Israel in recent years. Last year Mr. Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel; the Ramallah visit has come just weeks after his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited India. On the other hand, late last year India voted along with a vast majority of member-states at the UN General Assembly against U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Last week in Ramallah, the Palestinian National Authority’s administrative headquarters, Mr. Modi reiterated India’s support for the Palestinian cause, saying it “hopes that Palestine soon becomes a sovereign and indep

We must review the strategy to revive forests, and move away from monoculture plantations. The Environment Ministry’s ‘India State of Forest Report 2017’ based on satellite imagery, may present a net positive balance in the form of 24.4% of India’s land area under some form of forest or tree cover, but this is but a broad-brush assessment. According to the report, forest and tree cover together registered a 1% rise over the previous estimate two years ago. However, such an estimate listing very dense, moderately dense, open and scrub forests mapped through remote sensing does not really provide deep insights into the integrity of the green areas. The emphasis in environmental policy to raise forest cover to 33% of the geographical area will yield some dividends. There has been an increase over the baseline cover of 20% at the turn of the century. Yet, tree cover is not the same as having biodiverse, old-growth forests. The ecosystem services performed by plantations that have a lot of

In democracies, citizens have a right to know why, where and how the government spends public money. Each year we, therefore, await the Prime Minister’s response to the President’s address in the Budget session of Parliament. This year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech was less about the financial implications of the intended policies of his government, and more about blaming the Congress for the disasters that track Indians since 1947. In the process, he neatly sidestepped the basic obligation he owes us: accountability. Equally troubling is his rather rash allegation that the Congress was responsible for the partition of the country, and for the division of Jammu and Kashmir. We know that representations of history tend to wander far away from actual events, and even construct them. But Mr. Modi’s explanation of the Partition has little to do with one of the most catastrophic divisions of territory and people in the subcontinent. It has more to do with a personal obsession. 🔹

The Hollywood film Moneyball (2011) is about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and the attempt by its manager to put together a competitive team on a lean budget using data and computer analytics rather than depending on mere biases to recruit new players. The film stands out for focussing the spotlight on data science by showing that the art of data science is more about asking the right questions than just having the data. It is difficult to imagine the great volume of data we supply to different agencies in our everyday actions, bit by bit through surfing the Internet, posting on social media, using credit and debit cards, making online purchases, and other things where we share information about our identity. It is believed that social media and networking service companies such as Facebook may already have more data than they are leveraging. There are infinite ways to slice and dice data, which itself is quite daunting as at every step, there is potential to make huge mistakes.

When Chennai police recently played spoiler at the birthday bash of a local gangster, Binu, no fewer than 75 history-sheeters attending the event surrendered, offering little resistance. Notwithstanding this rare instance of non-violent intervention against “rowdies”, there is little doubt that a thriving parallel culture of rowdyism has taken root in Tamil Nadu. Gang wars, police complicity, ineffective monitoring in prisons, a painfully slow legal system, and political patronage have ensured that rowdies — typically common criminals who sometimes harbour grand ambitions of power and patronage — are never out of circulation. Many have origins in the slums of north Chennai, rural Madurai, and the southern pockets of the State. Their reign of terror, which took off after gangs became more organised in the 1970s, has been peppered with deaths in police encounters. Rowdies have evolved since the days they roamed the streets in lungis and vests, hurling soda bottles in the air and rotati

The results of the Rajasthan byelections signal growing restlessness among the voters, says the former Karnataka Chief Minister Former Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna quit the Congress last year and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He said then that he was saddened that “all they want is managers and not grassroots leaders with experience.” In this interview, the 85-year-old leader, who was also External Affairs Minister (2009-2012) and Governor of Maharashtra (2004-2008), speaks of the challenges facing the BJP before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, argues that identity politics won’t work in Karnataka, and explains why Bengaluru is failing to expand. Excerpts: 🔹The BJP suffered a setback in the Rajasthan byelections. How do you read those results? These are alarm bells for the BJP. The bypoll results in Rajasthan, I think, are the initial signs of growing restlessness among the voters. I think the BJP will have to do some introspection. It has to set the house in orde