Daily Hindu Editorials

👉We must publicise the full information on organ allocations to secure public trust in the donation process👈 Over the last few days a storm has been raised following publication of an article in The Hindu (June 12, 2018) based on a leaked WhatsApp message from the head of the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO) claiming that foreign patients who are waiting for a donor heart transplant are being prioritised over Indian patients by private hospitals in Chennai. This article has angered many. Unfortunately, amidst the din, the basic concepts of organ donation, allocation and transplantation have been completely lost. 👉Tamil Nadu’s advantage A forward thinking bureaucracy, committed non-governmental organisations and a willing political dispensation took up promotion of cadaver organ donation as a must-have in Tamil Nadu around 10 years ago. This was primarily in response to a widely publicised and unrelated kidney donation racket unearthed in the late...

👉The standoff in Delhi has placed everyone in a bad light👈 One crisis, many causes. The immediate provocation for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sitting on a dharna at the residence of the Lt. Governor might have been a run-in with the bureaucracy, but the crisis is rooted in the understanding (or misunderstanding) of the constitutional limits of the powers of the elected government in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. The Aam Aadmi Party government has a history of confrontation with the Centre on the question of who is the administrative head of a region that is less than a State and more than a Union Territory. Since the party came to power in 2015, the demand for Delhi to be given the status of a full-fledged State, allowing it among other things powers over the police, has become strident. Differences extend to the LG’s discretionary powers to appoint the Chief Secretary, with the AAP nursing a grouse that the bureaucratic cadre came directly under the Centre. Matters...

👉Iván Duque’s election as Colombia’s President puts a question mark on the peace accord👈 Colombia’s first presidential election since the landmark 2016 peace deal with the FARC Marxist guerrillas has thrown up the youngest winner in its history. But the victory of the 41-year-old right-wing candidate, Iván Duque, raises questions for the future of the agreement negotiated by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning outgoing President, Juan Manuel Santos. Mr. Duque, a relative political novice, beat his rival, Gustavo Petro, an erstwhile insurgent, by a 12 percentage point margin in Sunday’s run-off. Mr. Duque’s victory is likely to help the conservatives further consolidate their gains in the Congress, where the centrists led by Mr. Santos remain weakened. Mr. Duque’s decade-long work experience with the Inter-American Development Bank perhaps partly explains his programme of economic orthodoxy — to cut corporate taxes and create a conducive climate for investment in the oil sector. A proté...

👉South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s skilful diplomacy is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize👈 The Nobel Peace Prize has been conferred on international organisations which simply do their job and even the promoters of impractical disarmament initiatives, while the real issues that involve the very survival of mankind cry out for out-of-the-box solutions. Three festering situations which guarantee this Nobel for anyone who can break the impasse are Korea, Palestine and Kashmir. There is no dearth of proposals to resolve them but they elude acceptance as the parties concerned have adopted ironclad positions. The traditional approach is to let things be. Till very recently, North Korea was a clear case of a total freeze being preferable to any meddling that might cause an escalation. With a mix of authoritarianism, holding out nuclear threats and irrational behaviour, three generations of Kims held the world to ransom while successive U.S. Presidents followed a carrot and stic...

👉The judiciary doesn’t seem to fully appreciate the economic consequences of its judgments👈 The number of legal disputes involving property, contract, labour, tax and corporate laws is bound to increase with an expanding economy. How they are adjudicated by courts not only has direct consequences for the disputants, but also shapes the behaviour of individuals and entities involved in production, commerce and banking. Judicial findings also influence decision-making of government agencies, which are major actors in a developing economy. Yet, the Indian judiciary doesn’t seem to fully appreciate the economic consequences of its judgments. 👉Case studies A case in point is a May 31, 2018 order of the Allahabad High Court — Independent Power Producers Association of India v. Union of India and Ors. The court has ruled that bankruptcy proceedings cannot be started against a power company unless the company is a wilful loan defaulter. It did not factor in the issue of viabilit...

👉 The confusion continues till date 👈 The growth of data has been exponential. According to an IBM report, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created per day. This has created a new class of professionals — data scientists. The question is, is data science another ‘hot’ job or a new form of science? In the Hollywood movie 21, six students, brilliant with numbers, make money at the blackjack tables of Las Vegas casinos by using numbers, codes, and hand gestures. Can we call them data scientists? 👉The ‘fourth paradigm’ In 2009, pioneering computer scientist Jim Gray argued that data science is the “fourth paradigm” of science, the other three being empirical, theoretical and computational paradigms. In terms of the volume of data to be handled nowadays, it certainly sounds sensible. However, data have always played a major role in scientific developments and the growth of knowledge, not just now. About two centuries ago, Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection was la...

👉A recently published advertorial on abortion reduced a complex issue to a sound bite👈 Recently, an advertorial in a major English-language newspaper for a show called ‘Zindagi Ke Crossroads’, on a leading TV channel, led with the bold red headline: “Mother asked to kill her own child.” This might work as an attention-grabber, but for anyone concerned about reproductive rights — and that should be all of us — it is potentially traumatic. For any woman who has undergone an abortion, this amounts to public mockery of a difficult decision. Even allowing for the fact that viewership for prime-time reality shows in India is extremely competitive, and that provocative advertising and content are par for the course, the strident quality of this advertisement, which filled a quarter of the front page of the newspaper, amounted to cocking a snook at women’s reproductive rights. While the advertisement went on to accuse women who choose an abortion of trying to play god, and virtually ...