Daily Hindu Editorials

💥Gold The Indian mixed team badminton claimed gold for the first time in the Games' history. In the 10m men's air pistol event, India's Jitu Rai won gold. This is his second Commonwealth gold.  In the wo men's table tennis event, the Indian team won its first ever Commonwealth gold medal.  In 10m women's air pistol , Manu Bhaker won gold and added sixth gold for India at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. Weightlifter Punam Yadav became the third woman to win gold for India, coming out on top in the women's 69 kg category at the CWG 2018. Weightlifter Venkat Rahul Ragala became the fourth Indian to claim a gold medal in the men's 85 kg category. Weightlifter Satish Kumar Sivalingam won India's third gold in the men’s 77kg category. Weightlifter Sanjita Chanu landed India its second gold medal, winning the top spot in the women’s 53kg category. Weightlifter Mirabai Chanu was the first gold medal winner...

💥As he appears before Congressional panels, Mark Zuckerberg is a far cry from the liberal hero that he was “By entering these premises you are agreeing to be photographed and video recorded,” read a signboard at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington DC that several thousand crossed this weekend to view the annual USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo. Hardly anyone noticed that, pretty much the way we all signed up for our Facebook accounts. In slices of the future that were on showcase inside were micro-sensors on the body that would capture health parameters around the clock, nano robots that could swim through the bloodstream and talk with robotic doctors, and airport cameras which could scan passengers to see if they were carrying some diseases into the country. “You will be called the Mars generation,” a NASA scientist told excited children, and horrified parents, at one of the presentations. Facebook, if it continues to rely only on people’s proa...

💥Delhi and Kathmandu should rebuild ties by focussing on deliverables Nepali Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s visit to India signals an important recalibration of bilateral ties. While the focus of the official pronouncements has been on connectivity, it is the perceptible absence of tensions in public interactions and official meetings, including with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that gives hope that the rupture in ties over India’s reservations about Nepal’s new constitution is being repaired. The visit follows a great deal of preparation by both Delhi and Kathmandu. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made an unusual departure from protocol to visit Mr. Oli in Kathmandu and congratulate him for his election win even before he had been sworn in. It was a significant shift from 2015-17, when the five-month-long blockade of truck trade at the Nepal-India border and Nepal’s ties with China placed a severe strain on the relationship. For his part, Mr. Oli put aside the anti-Ind...

💥Ranking educational institutions is useful, but the HRD Ministry’s effort needs fine-tuning The “who’s who” of universities and research institutions published by the Human Resource Development Ministry, as the National Institutional Ranking Framework, 2018, should be viewed mainly as a proposition that data make it possible to assign objective credentials to some aspects of education. Its assessment of some of the top institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the IITs and the IIMs is unsurprising, given their record of research, peer-reviewed publications and outcomes for graduates. Even among the 3,954 institutions that participated, there is a clear skew towards southern, southeastern and western India. Participation levels are inadequate: there were 40,026 colleges and 11,669 standalone institutions according to the HRD Ministry’s All India Survey on Higher Education for 2016-17. To the faculty and students in many colleges, what m...

The curious saga of Lula da Silva that has undermined democracy in Brazil Over the weekend, Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva turned himself in to the police after having been charged with corruption under the wide-ranging Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation. Tens of thousands of people blocked roads across the country to protest his impending arrest. Thousands surrounded the metalworkers’ union building where he had waited. When he insisted that he would turn himself in and begin serving his 12-year sentence, Mr. Lula da Silva was carried on the shoulders of the crowd waiting outside. It was a dramatic moment for a man who remains hugely popular in Brazil and is seen by many as a standard-bearer of the aspirations of the poor. Before he went to prison, Mr. Lula da Silva released a statement of great feeling: “Those who persecute me can do what they want to me, but they will never imprison our dreams.” Brazil is to hold a presidential election in October. M...

💥Seeking full disclosure on how patents are working locally through Form 27 will help promote innovation A new chapter on the access to medication debate in India began when Shamnad Basheer filed a public interest litigation before the Delhi High Court. The petition pointed out the importance of “working requirements” in the Patents Act, 1970; the need to amend Form 27; and the lapses by patentees in furnishing information. The importance of Form 27 on the question of access to health cannot be underestimated. In essence, Form 27 seeks information to ensure that the patented material is adequately supplied in India. If the supply of the patented invention does not cater to the demands, statutorily the reasonable requirement of the public with regard to the patented invention is deemed as not met. This will be a ground to seek compulsory licensing of the product within India. The underlying rationale is to protect public health. 👉Working requirement Patent law grants t...

💥Sri Lanka’s national unity government needs to sharpen its focus Last week, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe survived a no-confidence motion against him, saving the country’s first national unity government from a devastating fall. Now, with President Maithripala Sirisena and Mr. Wickremesinghe agreeing to stay united and reshuffle the cabinet, the government can, at least to some extent, deliver on the mandate it received in 2015. 👉Power struggle However, this is neither simple nor straightforward for the two leaders, after having tried to undermine each other in a visible power struggle within the ruling alliance. The local government polls in February saw the worst of it, especially with Mr. Sirisena going after the Prime Minister in public, citing a major scandal at the central bank under the leadership of a governor hand-picked by Mr. Wickremesinghe. The rift cost them and their parties — Mr. Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Mr. Wickreme...