Handmade is the future

IT’s a no-brainer. The cultural and creative industries have the potential to not only ensure regular work and employment for ...

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What’s microfinance upto?

AFTER half a century of growth, microfinance seems to be currently going through one of its periodic off-colour patches. In ...

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When rivers break free

LAST month in Bihar many rivers swelled, spilling onto floodplains and inundating farms, settlements and roads, and displacing more than ...

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Is it the end of family?

MARRIAGE and family are institutions within which we have grown up, comfortable in the assumption that these are an integral ...

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The giving instinct

A running theme in the many tributes paid to industrialist Ratan Tata has been the recognition of his record as ...

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Going beyond home

I began working in Mumbai (then Bombay) as a young woman of 20. My workplace was safe, but I had ...

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Land grab on the banks

OVER the past two years, I have had the opportunity to meet with district magistrates (DMs) and chief development officers ...

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Rise of individualism

MANY claim that we are entering an era which marks the end of ideologies and the death of “isms”. Communism ...

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Marking territory

Dogs do it. Mark territory. So do humans. The methods differ. The objective is the same. To protect one’s turf by ...

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Broken bridges of governance

AT the recent Conference of Governors, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged governors to serve as “an effective bridge between the ...

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Railways on the wrong track

THERE seems to be something seriously wrong with Indian Railways. In a two-month period ending July 2024 there were three ...

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Floodplains belong to rivers

A river requires sufficient space to carry out its diverse functions. This space is delineated by the river itself, carving ...

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Not easy to find a Yunus

DEMOCRATIC institutions ensure that a State renews its legitimacy within civil society. When those who take control of the State subvert ...

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Skills survived many odds

AS we  celebrate our 78th Independence Day, there’s no better time to honour the rich tapestry of handcrafted textiles that ...

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Boost that birthrate

A previous article (‘Demographic Dangers’, Civil Society, June 2024) discussed some implications of the latest fertility figures for India and ...

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On a weak foundation

WHEN Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presents her sixth annual Financial Statement and Budget speech in Parliament, she will equal ...

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Small media with big impact

AMONG the many institutions of Indian democracy that earned disrepute in recent years the so-called ‘mainstream’ media stands out. Becoming ...

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The voter doesn’t have a choice

INDIAN political parties have honed the art of winning elections by holding the voter to ransom. Such is the decline ...

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The power of the collective

THE excitement and fervour surrounding the general election in India has been palpable, with heated discussions and loud campaigns dominating ...

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Demographic dangers

DEMOGRAPHY is in the news, thanks to the Lok Sabha elections and the latest projections of population growth. The former ...

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In Kafka’s universe

IN June every year the media publishes articles recollecting the imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi’s government in June 1975. ...

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2024: Two narratives

RESPONDING to the 2024 election manifesto of the Congress party, titled Nyay Patra, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it bears ...

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Growing the rural start-up

STARTING an independent  for-profit social enterprise in rural India is not just a venture — it’s a courageous step towards ...

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Cruising on troubled waters

THE world’s longest river cruise, Ganga Vilas, that was flagged off in 2023, covers five states in India and Bangladesh ...

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Innovation is the buzzword

INVENTION is the holy grail of researchers: to create something that does not exist and may not even have been ...

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Have money, will spend

THE Ambani family’s over-the-top partying at Jamnagar has been widely commented upon at home and abroad. Only the socially unaware ...

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Armed with a fearless pen

BE Fearless is a compelling, timeless but difficult call. When you are confronted by a hostile mob that is determined ...

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Exercising the right to die

AS medical science progresses and economic development leads to cleaner environments that transmit smaller infection loads, people are living longer ...

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Bringing back wildlife

SANCTUARIES inside rivers? Yes. There are several stretches of rivers that have been declared protected areas under the Wildlife Protection ...

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A chip for your thoughts

OVER the centuries, humans have constantly sought to increase their muscle power. Bullocks for ploughing, water currents for milling, and ...

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Money power and politics

A quarter-century ago, in a different era, a very different kind of politician from very different political parties sat together ...

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Pollution the internal enemy

First, let’s get this straight. There are no safe levels of air pollution. Experts speak in one voice when they ...

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A force for the river

THE Ganga Task Force (GTF) was stationed along the banks of the Ganga with the objective of preventing pollution from ...

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The status economy

WHERE do you live? This question, asked by a fellow guest at a Delhi party, can determine the flow of ...

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Business rules, everywhere

THE Covid pandemic which struck in February 2020 shattered the livelihoods of billions around the world and hundreds of thousands ...

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A river has the right to life

DESPITE our professed love for rivers and water bodies, our actions have inflicted deeper injuries on their wholesome existence. The ...

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Two compelling symbols

WE live in an age of many firsts. We are the first humans to have a ‘Doomsday Clock’ as well ...

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The leisure economy

ARE you free? This oft-asked question is prone to multiple interpretations. Human rights activists will understand it in the context ...

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Banga at the Bank

AJAY Banga made headlines when he was named president of the World Bank by US President Joe Biden. Indian born ...

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Space for peace

ISRO’s successful soft landing of Chandrayaan is a joyous moment that can inspire us to dwell on a big question. ...

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Delhi’s water footprint

MOST of the water consumed in Delhi is not of its own. Delhi’s water reflects a strange mix of power, ...

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India’s diamond

THE headline may lead you to think that this is about the diamond jubilee last year of India’s independence, or ...

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People and summits

A summit, by definition, is for summiteers. Sherpas are needed and so are all the camp staff. Ordinary people are ...

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Fight back with a kiss

IT is ten years since the annals of nonviolent civil disobedience were enlivened by the ‘kissing protest’ in Turkey. In ...

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Wrecked rivers hit back

OVER the past two months, there has been a series of natural disasters including flash floods, thunderstorms, cloudbursts, landslides, and ...

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Those left behind

DESPITE the ambiguity that the heading might lead to, this is not about the Communist or other Leftist parties as ...

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A debate of bytes

WE have all heard television journalists implore whoever they are seeking to interview, “Give me a byte”. In the age ...

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A laughing matter

Non-violent civil disobedience is usually associated with images of a lone, unarmed and grim-faced person standing defiantly in the path ...

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Highways vs rivers

When highways get built, they traverse many water bodies which feed rivers and streams and may in fact be more ...

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Diversity is strength

On occasion, most recently in the US, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken with pride about the diversity of India. ...

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Down the drain

During the year I was at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore the then Lt Governor ...

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Raising the hand of peace

AN impassioned procession of protesters was marching towards Gandhi Maidan in Patna. The year was 1974 and that procession was ...

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Yamuna is a little bit cleaner

THE Yamuna river is showing some signs of improvement in its water quality. The levels of biological oxygen demand (BOD) ...

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Diplomacy, society and business

For over two years the United States political and administrative system found it difficult to appoint an ambassador to India. ...

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Not an exclusive heaven

ONE morning, at a school assembly, the principal urged students and teachers to make their school a ‘heaven on earth’. ...

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Riverfronts kill rivers

RECENTLY, over 2,000 citizens participated in a unique protest along the banks of the Mula-Mutha river in Pune by hugging ...

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The pain of one

THERE is a new affliction across much of the world, especially in the West. Unlike Covid or other viruses, it ...

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Mobilizing civil society

CIVIL society groups have always been engaged in mainstream politics in one way or another, albeit at its margins. Rarely ...

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Map and save water bodies

A few months ago, I travelled to Bahraich district in Uttar Pradesh to carry out a mapping and surveying project ...

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With AI, a zero-sum game?

TECHNOLOGICAL singularity, an idea first advanced by mathematician John van Neumann, is when technological growth becomes self-sustaining, irreversible, and practically ...

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Censorship and self-censorship

THE problems for democracies, observed an editorial in the inaugural issue of the national newsmagazine India Today (December 1975), “is ...

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Will India seize the moment?

The tagline of the rap song "Apna time aayega" (My time will come) from the recent Hindi film, The Gully ...

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How cities swallow rivers

While working on the older Corona satellite pictures of Lucknow, I was impressed by the number of rivers that the city ...

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Kanyashree is the answer

The Assam government’s recent drive against child marriage, which has led to several thousand arrests, has created a turmoil in a ...

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For a ban on polygamy

Inequality between man and woman is one of the key features of an unfair male- dominated world order. Although India ...

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Foreign funds, Indian minds

A few years ago I had written in these very pages of Civil Society a column titled “Funding the Indian ...

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Floods now on climate agenda

MORE and more towns and cities across the world are facing the threat of extreme flooding. Climate change is increasingly ...

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Food fashions and the future

A much-used slogan is roti, kapda, makaan. Of these, food is a survival necessity, and has long been on top ...

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End the plan holiday

WE have had ‘plan holidays’, that is, a break from five-year plans, many times before. In the late 1960s, the ...

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Bring back wild and scenic rivers

IN my city I often search for a spot by the side of the Gomti river which looks somewhat wild ...

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What stole my job?

LAY-OFFS, unemployment, moonlighting and gig work, shortage of talent; amidst issues and contradictions, what is happening to jobs? People around ...

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Quantifying reality

THE Global Hunger Index (GHI), published by two European non-government organizations, has been universally slammed in India both by government ...

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A change of heart is welcome

THE significance of recent initiatives for Hindu-Muslim dialogue, reported in the media, cannot be under-valued in our highly polarized times. ...

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Dense city, dense flooding

THE rain in September and October with unexpected, powerful cloudbursts, and the phasing out of the monsoon was unusual on ...

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Name or number?

WHO am I? is a deep philosophical question, one which can take a lifetime of pondering. Humans are prone to ...

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Among the people

ON the eve of Rahul Gandhi’s padayatra political commentator Neerja Chaudhuri made a pertinent observation in a televised discussion. Almost ...

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Decentralize or drown

THE recent flooding in Bengaluru, the IT capital of India and amongst the most important global hubs for the tech ...

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Uncertainty complex

A new ‘uncertainty complex’ is unsettling lives and has already reversed the gains of five years of human development at ...

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On a digital high

Economies around the world are going through a major transition. In some, this has been slow and incremental, evolving over ...

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India at 75

In quick succession, between 1896 and 1906, Swami Vivekananda, Jamsetji Tata, Rabindranath Tagore and the engineer, Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, who founded the ...

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War and the economy

WAR has direct human and economic consequences. Often, such consequences impact not just the countries at war but many others, ...

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Mobility matters

CRUCIAL meeting to get to, and stuck in a traffic jam? That is when you realize how much mobility matters. ...

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River as a person with rights

  THE idea of endowing legal rights on non-humans and entities with constitutional protections is not new. Local grassroots movements ...

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Rivers need groundwater

THE Ganga basin, the world’s most densely irrigated area, is a global hotspot of groundwater depletion. The five states through ...

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Creating urban harmony

THEFTS. Street crime. Dacoities. Drugs. Gang wars. No, this is not the ad blurb for a new Bollywood potboiler; rather, ...

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Gyanvapi and Nupur Sharma

POLITICIANS thrive on staying in the news. No publicity is bad publicity for them, as the old saying goes. For ...

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The federal political cycle

ECONOMISTS are familiar with the concept of a business cycle and some even with the idea of a political business ...

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Hindi and cow belt politics

AMERICAN journalist Robert Lane Greene’s much appreciated book, You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics ...

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Demography-driven migration

DEMOGRAPHY has, for some years now, been recognized as a driver of various key parameters of a nation. A country ...

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The other divide

AMITAVA Ghosh’s recently published book, The Nutmeg’s Curse, exploring the historical roots of global warming and ecological destruction, tracing them ...

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Counting daisies?

IT takes a child to tell an emperor that he is not wearing any clothes. My seven-year-old grandson made me ...

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The future wars

THE war in Ukraine has busted many a myth. Most have felt, for some years now, that the days of ...

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Atmanirbharata redux

WHEN Prime Minister Narendra Modi first spoke about the concept of atmanirbharata, many mainstream economists criticized him for reverting to ...

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Putting the powerless first

THE COVID-19 pandemic has put the global economy through a severe stress test. As accelerated stress tests do in medicine ...

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Reason to wonder and worry

IN the years ahead, technology will affect and change our lives even more than it has in the past. Last ...

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IOU: A 2022 message for 2024

INDIA is a psephologist’s and electoral data miner’s delight. Not only does the country generate an enormous amount of electoral ...

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2030 can be India’s techade

ELECTIONS in many states this year and for the Lok Sabha in 2024; the 75th anniversary of Independence and of ...

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The decline of debate

ON August 5, 2019, I met Arun Jaitley, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, for the last time at his ...

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Children of a lesser God

Mahdi Basheer Hasan al Badri is barely 30 years old and the product of three wars as well as a ...

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The outward bound

When news of business billionaire MukeshAmbani acquiring a massive 300-acre estate in England was flashed in the media, it was ...

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