News and Views

On 19 April, Twitter in Pakistan went into overdrive when renowned singer-actor Meesha Shafi posted her #MeToo statement accusing Ali Zafar, arguably one of Pakistan’s most popular celebrities, of sexual molestation. The expected ensued.

The year 1983 was special for me, not only for being part of the World Cup winning team, but also because I met the little genius Sachin Tendulkar for the very first time. It was during the shoot of my movie “Kabhi Ajnabi The” at RCF ground Chembur in Mumbai where our film unit required 21 kids for a cricket practice scene. Who would have thought that among those 21 odd kids, there would be this very special kid named Sachin Tendulkar, with a spark in his eye and a bounce in his legs?

Raksha Mantri Nirmala Sitharaman will be meeting Chinese Defence Minister General Wei Fenghe for the second time this month. The two leaders had met earlier this month on the sidelines of the Moscow Security Conference (MCS) and exchanged views on bilateral issues.

With no regulations in place, private agents charge exorbitant fees and often swindle their clients.

The 2 April Bharat bandh has the BJP and the RSS still shaky in the knees. This bandh by the Dalits was in protest of the Supreme Court judgment which weakens the SC/ST Act. The Dalits were angry that after suffering atrocities for thousands of years, the one law made to protect them had also been weakened.

Of all living creatures, human beings must be the most barbaric and cruel. The eight-year-old Bakerwal girl’s gruesome rape and murder in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir, on 10 January 2018, once again confirms this.

What further proves that we humans have indeed stooped to new lows is the mad search for videos on a porn website using the Kathua rape victim’s name, soon after the tragic incident came to light.

On 15 April this year, a loose, eclectic group of retired civil servants, of which I am a part, released an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing our shock, our anguish and our anger over the crisis of governance and constitutional principles that the two horrifying incidents of rape and murder in Kathua and Unnao represented.

Our focus was on the agenda of hate and division insidiously introduced by the ruling establishment into our political processes, our institutions and even our daily discourse. We can see how this is rapidly eroding the values on which our republic is based.

Is monsoon as relevant today as it has been made out to be?  My research shows that good monsoon, smiling farmers and better economic growth correlation, at best, is a tenuous one, writes Mayank Mishra.