Daily Hindu Editorials

👉Parliament proceedings👈 Concrete steps are needed to defuse crises that could disrupt India’s political and social equilibrium As 2019 and the general election beckon, the situation within the country appears far from reassuring. Several events over the past few months seem to presage that there is worse to follow. Protests and agitations have a life of their own and underestimating their potential could be cause for grief. Hence, it might be worthwhile for the nation’s leaders to pay heed to the ancient Chinese proverb, “the wind sweeping through the tower heralds a storm rising in the mountain”, and take anticipatory steps. 👉Lowdown on internal security The authorities need to analyse why simultaneous upheavals are taking place on different planes across the country. Each day, a concatenation of events and situations are contributing to feelings of deep unease. Take internal security, for instance. The authorities may claim that the situation is stable but the d...

👉Getting affordable electricity to every household needs sustained policy support👈 Access to electricity drives the productivity of households, empowers women and enables education and communication. Millions of homes still lack this vital resource in India. And as of April 1, 2015, the official count of unelectrified villages was 18,452. So when Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that all inhabited villages now enjoy electrification, it signalled a significant milestone in the country’s development. It is an achievement that will raise aspirations in the remotest districts. Yet, broad-brush statistics conceal severe disparities, including the actual number of households in villages that have power connections, the number of hours they get reliable power, and the per capita power that rural and urban Indians consume. For one, the existing definition to declare a village electrified is coverage of a mere 10% of households and common facilities such as schools, panchay...

👉Protests over welfare reform have brought Daniel Ortega’s authoritarianism into focus👈 The violence and the clampdown that have convulsed Nicaragua, marked by mayhem on the streets of Managua and other cities, have left many dead, and undermined President Daniel Ortega’s authority. The public protests were triggered by the government’s decision to simultaneously raise individual contributions and reduce social welfare benefits and pensions. The economic rationale behind the move was to contain the ballooning social security deficit of recent years, based on the financial projections by the IMF for the end of the decade. But the economy registered a healthy rate of growth last year and the current account deficit has been falling. Given this, the government could have considered staggering the painful economic measures. The backlash has forced Mr. Ortega to roll back the reform proposal. But the damage was been done, and the reversal of the decision has energised the opposition t...

👉Rana Ayyub’s case shows how fake news is being created to target individuals👈 Fake news has wreaked damage several times over the last few years. It has whipped up communal frenzy. It has potentially sabotaged elections. Even as governments and social media companies grapple with methods of countering the publishing of fake news, a particularly alarming strain has come into existence recently, in the Rana Ayyub case. Last week, Ms. Ayyub, a freelance journalist and author of Gujarat Files, a book about the 2002 riots, registered a police complaint in Delhi about personalised fake news that put her in danger. According to her complaint, Ms. Ayyub was alerted by friends that a fake quote accompanied by her photograph was doing the rounds on social media. It was first tweeted by a fake account mimicking a TV channel’s logo. The fake quote went viral and triggered real outrage. Ms. Ayyub pointed out on her social media accounts that the quote and the account were fake, but t...

👉Recollections from a visit many years ago👈 The video of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un crossing over a slab of concrete to greet South Korean President Moon Jae-in not only went viral, with many calling this single step a creation of history, it also brought back vivid images of my own trip to the Demilitarised Zone some years ago. Located about 35 km to the north of Seoul, the Korean Demilitarised Zone is considered by some as the one of the most dangerous strips of land in the world. It is a heavily fortified area. Surrounded by mountains, a bunch of us journalists, visiting South Korea as part of a Korea-India journalist exchange programme, stood excitedly at a checkpoint, the tension between the two Koreas palpable there. It was a cold November morning in 2012. Adding to the chill were the views provided by telescopes placed on a terrace of a forbidden and unknown land. This was no happy, bustling touristy area. It seemed calm, but uneasily so. As we peered into t...