Panorama

Maneka Sanjay Gandhi Bovine tuberculosis (bTB), a cattle disease, is a major public health threat. It is transmitted within herds by inhalation of infected aerosol droplets from infected cattle. Despite the considerable economic costs, and zoonotic risk, India still does not have any accurate estimates. No surveillance, no checking systems and absolutely no national disease control programmes. Not even the …

CHANAKYA The coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) has the potential of not just redefining the rules and the balance of power in the international system, but altering the contours of Indian political life. The scale of the pandemic, the national lockdown, the economic crisis it has already generated, and the fact that every citizen – irrespective of class, caste, geography, gender, age, …

TENSING RODRIGUES Urali kuruman and melakudiya seem to be the specimen of two broad communities produced by the fusion of native Indian and Near Eastern (Iranian) ancestries. Urali kuruman are a sub-group of the bigger community of kuruman, kurumba or kuruba, which belong to an almost pan-Indian community, which we have called the kur community; to which the kumlbi too …

As COVID-19 pushes us to a life of social seclusion, a look at what this lifestyle change means for us POULOMI BANERJEE AND NATASHA REGO It would seem like a dream come true. Weeks of family time, with no office or school to disrupt the togetherness. Except that 39-year-old Gurgaon-based techie, Niranjan Singh Manohar and his wife, Shalini, are running …

TENSING RODRIGUES We seem to be leading to a sharp bend in our story. Up to now we have held that the kumlbi along with similar communities spread across the Indian peninsula, which we have collectively called the kur group of communities, could be the descendants of the Out of Africa dispersals, and therefore adivasi (ab-origine) in the true sense. …

Ramachandra Guha These past few weeks have been bad, if not disastrous, for Indian democracy. Three public institutions that were not in rude health to begin with have further declined in capability and credibility. First, the police. The misdoings of the Delhi Police in Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University were trifling compared to the riots that it enabled …

FREDERICK NORONHA Every once in a while, we come across a serious issue which is complex and so very difficult to understand. We are not specialists; at best, we are generalists. Yet, we are expected to read and understand technical matters, including sensitive medical issues. Can we get it wrong? Could we be off-target? Of course, we could. One thing …

Barkha Dutt There are no two ways about it: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing us for the worst, while obviously trying to avoid panic. Listening to his address to the nation, I was grateful for one thing. There was no attempt to play down the gravity of what the coronavirus could mean for India. This was in stark contrast …

Maneka Sanjay Gandhi By now you must be fed up with reading or listening to things about the coronavirus. It has taken everyone’s attention away from what they do, to whether they want to live or not. Economy, foreign affairs, shops closed, a potential food rationing coming up, unseasonal rains, global warming, a rise in cancer cases – every worry …

Karan Thapar It was “Zeeks” Sinha at Doon School who taught me there are two Indian monarchs we can legitimately consider “Great”, Ashoka in the third century BC and, 18 centuries later, Akbar. I took his word for it. As I grew older and read more widely I realised he was right. But now a biography of Akbar has revealed …