Daily Hindu Editorials

💥The Karnataka election will signal Congress’s preparedness to contain the BJP in 2019 Karnataka was supposed to be the Bharatiya Janata Party’s point of entry into southern India. But after its historic victory in the 2008 Assembly election, the party lost its way in the State, and the Congress staged a comeback five years later. Now, far from expanding to the neighbouring States, the party is struggling to return to power in Karnataka in the face of a determined defensive battle by the politically savvy Congress Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah. A relatively new entrant to the Congress, he has created his own space in the faction-ridden party and in the wider public sphere by traversing caste divides and resisting communal polarisation. Thus, the single-phase election on May 12 could witness a face-off between the BJP and the Congress, with the Janata Dal (Secular) a distant third. The BJP’s challenge is mounted by the old warhorse B.S. Yeddyurappa, its most valuable asset and arg...

💥The West must find some means to bring Russia to the negotiating table Russia made headlines for all the wrong reasons this week, when a clutch of countries led by the U.S. expelled more than 100 of its diplomats and intelligence officers over suspicion that the Kremlin was behind a nerve agent attack on a Russian spy and defector to the U.K., Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, in Salisbury on March 4. Besides the U.S., 14 member-states of the European Union, including Germany, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and Latvia, undertook coordinated expulsions, with Australia also joining them. In a sense this move, seen as the most dramatic, concerted such purge since the Cold War years, has been coming for some time. Last week the U.K. led the way when it expelled 23 Russian diplomats, but the week before that the U.S. had slapped Russia with sanctions against multiple individuals and entities for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presi...

💥Siddaramaiah runs the risk of defeating his valid pitch for more powers to States by mixing it with electoral politics A new flag for Karnataka has been ushered in by the Congress government of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who has urged the Centre to formally endorse it. Whether the Centre accepts his demand or rejects it, he is bound to reap electoral dividends at the cost of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party at the Centre. He appears to have used the same logic in granting separate religion status to Lingayats. 👉Brimming with symbolism One must also not lose sight of the symbolism involved. If allowed to have a flag, Karnataka would become the second State after Jammu and Kashmir to have its own flag. It would be a terrifying prospect for those who regard India as a crumbling edifice. Interestingly, both the BJP and the Congress are united in viewing with suspicion every expression of sub-nationalism, cultural autonomy, or love for one’s language...

💥We need a white paper on the extensive data markets that currently exist in India We are witnessing mass outrage over certain actions or non-actions of Facebook (FB) and a British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica (CA), regarding the use of personal data for political messaging during the U.S. presidential elections. But digging into the issue, it is difficult to see what is really novel in the current disclosures that was previously not known. It is also unclear why the facts that these disclosures centre on are more important than many other well-known facts about the underlying issue of data, digital controls and exploitation. It is not evident what the real concerns underlying the outrage are. And lastly, there is the important question of what it really means for countries such as India. CA’s role in the U.S. elections has been known for quite some time. So now after a whistle-blower’s account and an undercover investigation, if those responsible for data ...

💥The renewed focus on RUSA is welcome, but its litmus test will be in how impartially it is administered The Union Cabinet’s decision recently to not only continue with the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) — ‘a Centrally sponsored scheme launched in 2013 to provide strategic funding to eligible State higher educational institutions’ — but also give it due importance augurs well for the system of higher education in India. That the government is backing the scheme speaks volumes about the robustness and relevance of the scheme. 👉Ground realities India is estimated to have over 800 universities (over 40,000 colleges are affiliated to them). About 94% of students of higher education study in 369 State universities. But the Central government’s slant toward premier institutions has continued ever since the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12), where in spite of a nine-fold increase in Budget allocation State institutions have been left to fend for themselves with fun...

💥Is Nitish Kumar fishing in uncertain political waters or do his remarks indicate a change in alliance again? For the first time since he joined hands with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in July 2017, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said that his government will not compromise on “communalism and corruption”. It is pertinent to ask why he found it necessary to make this assertion now, especially as these have anyway been his government’s top priorities. Has Mr. Kumar started feeling the heat of his government’s alliance with the BJP? Or has he sensed the groundswell after this month’s by-elections, where two out of three seats, one Lok Sabha and one Assembly, were won by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)? In June 2013, when Mr. Kumar parted ways with the BJP after an eight-year alliance, he said that it was getting difficult for him to continue in the new era of the BJP. After his humiliating defeat in the 2014 general election, in which his party got just two seats, Mr...