This past year was expected to be crucial for moving ahead with the corruption charges involving the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), popularly known as Vyapam. The CBI did file two charge-sheets naming a staggering 1,082 accused -- but it is yet to name the mastermind of the entire scam....
While the strategic petroleum sector, including oil and gas, continues to remain outside the new GST indirect tax regime that replaced a 70-year-old system, the industry did manage in 2017 to switch over to a new exploration regime that gives producers marketing and pricing freedom. ...
Adopting disruptive technology and riding on the Digital India bandwagon, the e-commerce sector has survived the slowdown in 2017 and benefited from the note ban, which spurred online transactions. ...
Economic reforms, coupled with political stability and prospects of higher future growth led market participants to bet "big and long" on the Indian equity markets during 2017....
Opposition parties face a daunting task to check the BJP's rise and expansion under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the coming year presents them opportunities to do so in eight states that go to the polls. It will also test them for their ability to build up the momentum against the BJP in the run-up to the 2019...
Nepal has banned solo climbers from scaling its mountains, including Mount Everest, in an attempt to reduce accidents and make mountaineering safer....
Only the naive will believe that deep concern for the welfare of Muslim "sisters" and for the maintenance of the "dignity of women" and "gender equality" persuaded the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to introduce the bill in parliament to ban the practice of triple talaq. ...
A neutral Election Commission (EC) is to a democracy what a violin is to a symphony orchestra or a vertebra is to the backbone. The EC, in the words of a former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), is like a neutral umpire in a cricket match -- he officiates from beginning to end without participating in the game....
Uttar Pradesh was a parched land for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for 14 long years. Ever since the then Chief Minister Rajnath Singh lost the plot in the 2003 state assembly elections, the saffron party found itself on the sidelines of the country's politically most crucial state. ...
Kranti Kumari, Ramrati Kumari, Rupa Kumari and Soni Kumari have one thing in common. They are part of a small team performing street plays across this remote and underdeveloped rural pocket of Bihar's Gaya district to educate girls and their parents to say "no" to child marriage....
