In Focus by The Hindu

March 21, was single parents day, commemorating mothers and fathers, who parent alone. And while in India, families are still widely seen as that of two biological parents and their children, this is rapidly changing: families can come in all sorts of forms – from single parents, to parents who are not married but live together, adoptive parents, step-families, queer families and more. However, wh...

India’s women boxers have created history by winning four golds at the IBA World Boxing Championships that just concluded in Delhi. India topped the medals table, matching its best ever performance of 2006. The golden girls this time around were Nitu Ghangas (48 kg), Nikhat Zareen (50 kg), Lovlina Borgohain (75kg), and Saweety Boora (81kg). What is the significance of India’s performance in the co...

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposals for a judicial overhaul that would limit the powers of the Supreme Court have triggered massive protests in the country. More than 100,000 protesters gathered in front of the Israeli Parliament or the Knesset, and as the country’s most powerful trade unions called a general strike, there were flight cancellations at Tel Aviv international airp...

The phenomenon of Amritpal Singh has taken Punjab by storm. In a daring act, his supporters ransacked a police station in Ajnala and freed some of his associates in February. From a businessman in Dubai till September last year, Amritpal has become Punjab’s leading practitioner of separatist politics, telling Frontline magazine in a recent interview that he does not recognize the Indian Constituti...

Last week the Supreme Court asked the Centre for data that could point to a more dignified, less painful, and socially acceptable method of executing prisoners other than death by hanging. A Bench of Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice P.S. Narasimha even mooted the setting up of an expert committee to relook at India’s method of carrying out the death penalty. The alternatives tha...

Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as a member of Parliament from Wayanad constituency in Kerala on the 24th of March, a day after a Surat court convicted him on criminal defamation charges. Mr. Gandhi was sentenced to a maximum two-year jail term. The decision sent shockwaves through the country’s polity.  A two-year jail term in a criminal case means that a legislator is automatically disqualified on...

By postponing elections to the provincial assemblies in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa beyond a constitutionally-mandated period, the Election Commission of Pakistan has strayed into uncharted territory that could imperil democracy in the country yet again. This comes after a same-page show by the Army chief Asim Munir and the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in trying to tackle the com...

The Wagner Group has been at the forefront of Russian gains in eastern Ukraine, especially in the battle for the town of Bakhmut. It was also in the news over attempts by members of the U.S. Congress to label it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO), but strangely enough, the Biden administration is opposed to such a labelling. In another related development, President Vladimir Putin has just...

By issuing a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the International Criminal Court has upped the ante in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. It sets a bar from which retreat will be a trapeze act for the West. American President Joe Biden has hailed the ICC decision even as Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Moscow to meet President Putin. What impact will this have on t...

A Constitution Bench judgement of the Indian Supreme Court on March 2 took the appointment of Election Commissioners out of the sole hands of the political executive and assigned it to a three-member committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice and the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha. Appointments will take place through this panel till a law is made on this s...

Last week, California-based Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest bank in the United States, collapsed, sending shock waves through the start-up universe. Then two more banks – the crypto-currency focussed Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital – shut down, sparking fears of wider financial contagion, similar to how the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 triggered a global crisis. The American gov...

Next month, the Supreme Court of India, will listen to final hearings on the issue of legal recognition for same sex marriages in India. A number of petitions have been filed, seeking this recognition. The case follows the landmark Puttuswamy judgement of 2017, affirming the right to privacy as a fundamental right, and then the Navtej Johar judgement of 2018, which decriminalised same sex relation...

For the first time, United Nations members have agreed on a unified treaty to protect biodiversity in the high seas. On March 4, a draft international agreement, called the UN High Seas Treaty, was finalised to govern the conduct of governments in ‘open seas’ – the major part of the world’s oceans – two-thirds of it – which lie beyond the jurisdiction of any one country. Once ratified by the signa...

In a rare moment for Chinese diplomacy, Beijing used its good offices to broker an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia that should see the two warring West Asian nations re-establishing diplomatic relations and re-opening their embassies within two months. China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, who is a signatory to the “joint trilateral statement”, said the agreement showed that Beijing was a “reliab...

The Indian rupee has had an interesting run these past few weeks. It strengthened in response to investor inflows into the markets but started losing steam soon after the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony to the U.S. Congress in which he said controlling inflation would continue to be the focus area.  Does the RBI have a choice beyond keeping step with the Fed in raising interest...

The National Stock Exchange (NSE), one of India’s leading stock exchanges, has tweaked the constituents of its major indices such that three Adani Group companies are all set to enter key Nifty indices from March 31. The Adani stocks being included in Nifty indices include Adani Wilmar, which has been added to Nifty Next 50 and Nifty 100, Adani Total gas, which has been added to Nifty Shariah 25,...

COVID-19 and the fear around it may have gone away, but over the past few weeks, India has been rocked by cases of fever and intense coughs. People across States have been falling sick, and some have even had to be hospitalised. Last week, the Indian Council of Medical Research said these cases are linked to Influenza A, the H3N2 subtype virus that causes flu. The Council said surveillance data ha...

2023 is a busy year for state elections, with a total of nine state elections scheduled to take place. We are in March now, and three of those assembly polls have concluded. In all three – Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya – the incumbents have been returned to power. The BJP was voted back in Tripura, although with a reduced vote share, while in Nagaland, the alliance of the National Democratic Pro...

A few days ago, the results of an interesting study were published. The study, conducted in the United Kingdom saw 61 companies and 2,900 employees take part in the reduction of the work-day week, from the standard five days, to four days. At the end of the six-month experiment, employees were less stressed, had better work-life balance and were absent on fewer days. Companies reported no impact o...

On February 24th, the Supreme refused to entertain a PIL seeking period leave for students and working women. The three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, observed that the issue had “different” dimensions and asked the petitioner to approach the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development to frame a policy. The court also took note of a caveat filed by a law student...

GDP data for India in the Oct-Dec 2022 quarter has given out mixed signals. Of concern are a contraction in manufacturing despite a let up in input costs as well as the slowing growth in the high-contact services sectors. Still, the government seems confident of 7% growth in FY23 despite a revised growth rate data put out for FY22 at 9.1%. What does the near future hold for India?  Learn more abou...

The one-year anniversary of the ongoing war in Ukraine saw a number of related developments beyond the battle zone. First came the visit of President Joe Biden to Kyiv, where he reiterated the motto of ‘As long as it takes” for American support to the Ukrainian war effort, underlining that the US is in it for the long haul. Then President Vladimir Putin, in his state of the nation speech announced...

The Tata Group-owned Air India has placed two big orders with Europe’s Airbus consortium and Boeing for 470 planes – the largest ever single order placed by an airline in aviation history. As per the list price, the value of the order is around $70 billion. This order is evidently part of a strategy to rapidly expand the fleet and increase market share. It does raise some questions though: Does In...

The Election Commission of India recently recognised the Shiv Sena faction led by Eknath Shinde as the Shiv Sena and allotted the bow and arrow symbol to it. This order is now under challenge by the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Sena in the Supreme Court. Using the test of majority principle, and that a majority of party MLAs in Maharashtra had sided with Mr. Shinde, the Election Commission, in...

The inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) is all set to kick off from March 4. In an auction held earlier this year, five franchises – Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Gujarat Giants, UP Warriorz, and Mumbai Indians -- were sold for a total sum of ₹4,699.99 crores. In the players’ auction that followed, India opener Smriti Mandhana went for the highest price, with the A...