Daily Hindu Editorials

💥The HRD Ministry must pull out all the stops to restore trust in the CBSE exam process The Central Board of Secondary Education faces a serious erosion of credibility with the leak of its annual examination question papers on Economics for Class 12 and Mathematics for Class 10. Thousands of students are naturally frustrated that their best shot at these papers has come to nought; they must now make another strenuous effort in a re-examination. Clearly, the Ministry of Human Resource Development failed to assign top priority to secrecy and integrity of the process, considering that its standard operating procedure was easily breached, and the questions were circulated on instant messaging platforms. Yet, the problem is not new. State board question papers have been leaked in the past. When the HRD Ministry was asked in the Lok Sabha three years ago what it intended to do to secure the CBSE Class 12 and 10 examinations, Smriti Irani, who was the Minister then, asserted the inviol...

💥His visit strategically brings China into North Korea’s hectic diplomatic calendar The timing of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to China, his first foreign trip after assuming power in 2011, is not lost on anyone. After travelling to Beijing this week in an armoured train, he held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and re-emphasised his commitment to the “denuclearisation” of the peninsula, weeks before his scheduled April 27 summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. In May, Mr. Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump are expected to meet for a historic summit. By visiting Beijing now, Mr. Kim is sending a clear message: that he is serious about his offer of talks. The visit has also helped repair relations between Pyongyang and Beijing, which had come under some strain. China was not particularly happy with the North’s nuclear tests. Mr. Xi was under pressure from the West to exercise influence on Mr. Kim’s regime. And Beijing’s support for stringent UN sanctio...

💥India and Pakistan must seize the resolution of the diplomatic spat to normalise bilateral ties Islamabad’s decision to send High Commissioner Sohail Mahmood back to India just in time to host the Pakistan National Day reception in New Delhi, and New Delhi’s decision to send the Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, to attend the reception indicate that good sense may have prevailed on both sides. More pertinently, since the 19th of this month, India and Pakistan have not fired at each other across the border in Jammu and Kashmir barring one exception, a welcome calm after several weeks of incessant ceasefire violations. And yet, unless the two governments are willing to discuss and resolve the triggers that may have led to a series of incidents of harassment of diplomatic personnel, we may see a repeat of such incidents. Harassment of High Commission personnel requires critical attention because maintenance of diplomatic courtesi...

👍YES | Jaydev Mody Legalising it would help curtail an important source of black money and bring in revenue Gambling is ubiquitous in Indian society: people bet on animal fights on streets, they make bets while playing cards and before cricket matches. As the Irish philosopher Edmund Burke correctly said, “Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.” While societal attitudes towards gambling have changed in the last century, with gambling now seen as a legitimate form of recreation, Indian laws have not kept pace with the times. Although gambling and betting is a State subject, the primary law on which States have framed their gambling legislation is an archaic, British-era law called the Public Gambling Act, 1867. Ironically, while India follows a British-era prohibitionist statute, the U.K. legalised and regulated various forms of gambling and betting many decades ago. The Law Commission of India’s endeavour to study the issue of whether or not gambling and betting...

💥 Rahul Gandhi has still to explain what differentiates his Congress from other parties With one of his most scathing attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, Rahul Gandhi sounded the poll bugle for the 2019 general elections during the 84th plenary session of the Congress party in Delhi recently. The session, the first since Mr. Gandhi’s elevation as the president of the party, witnessed several Congress leaders taking jibes at the Modi government’s record on corruption, economic mismanagement and deteriorating social harmony among groups. Mr. Gandhi also candidly admitted his party’s failure to live up to people’s expectations during the last few years of UPA-II, and promised a new Congress where there would be no distance between the leadership and party workers. 👉A real alternative Notwithstanding the sound bites that followed the plenary, what is the significance of Mr. Gandhi’s speech? After all, the plenary of a party, especially the one just b...

💥There is a long road ahead before transgender persons are accepted into the mainstream Nearly a month after Shanavi Ponnusamy, a transwoman from Tamil Nadu, wrote to the President alleging that Air India had denied her a cabin crew job despite her clearing the written exam, the Ministry of Social Justice sent a Bill on transgender rights to the Cabinet, with amendments as suggested by a Standing Committee. These include bringing public establishments under Chapter V of the Bill, which prohibits discrimination in “any matter relating to employment, including, but not limited to, recruitment, promotion and other related issues.” Ms. Ponnusamy’s is not an isolated case. For every headline celebrating a transgender person’s recruitment in a mainstream profession, there is a contentious history. Take the case of K. Prithika Yashini, the first transwoman Sub-Inspector of Police in India. It took an order from the Madras High Court for the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment...