Can an autobiographically-inclined social history reveal the role of English in shaping caste privilege, regulating class mobility and enabling individual agency? This essay risks an answer.
A distinct exercise to validate the official estimates of India’s GDP growth during the years 2011-12 to 2017-18 finds that there was an over-estimation in the new series, similar to the conclusions of other critiques of the CSO's numbers.
Ever since the Right to Information Act was enacted in 2005 there have been continuous attempts to dilute this potentially powerful law. The dilution has come from government action as well as by judicial interpretation.
Unemployment today is at an all-time high but that is not the only challenge in jobs: more and more workers are withdrawing from the labour force, the wages of casual workers are below a reasonable minimum, and regular workers are largely without a contract.
Diversity & nationalism are complementary and not antagonistic to each other. The Constitution is built around the principle that Indians can love their country without surrendering any other equally legitimate identity. Ideas to think about on 15 August.
Article 370 is a permanent and not temporary provision of the Constitution that assures Jammu and Kashmir autonomy. Its content may have been hollowed out but it remains important for the people of Kashmir. Calls to scrap it are based on a misinterpretation.
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The story of the Vikassheel Insaan Party or VIP, a party of the Nishad community in Bihar, is important for understanding the positives and negatives of the rise of small caste-based political parties whose only agenda is reservation and representation.
Cultural factors do not explain why so few women are in paid work. The demands of housework and the need to care for the elderly limit the ability of many women to work outside. When they do look for work, it is neither available close by nor easy to get to.
Two recent books that talk about India’s Constitution as a people’s charter and its transformative character remind us why it remains an enduring document.
Mainstream media was delegitimised over the past five years by the BJP government. Co-option and self-censorship by this media have followed. Alongside, the use of social media has grown hugely, making the likes of Whatsapp powerful weapons in elections.
Close to half a century after K. Vela Velupillai tried to visit Cuba, he finally travels to the island in the Caribbean Sea. He sees changes taking place; there is also confirmation of the Cuban project. A diary of a 11-day visit in early 2019.
An affectionate tribute to the low-brow humorists of the British Empire who wrote in the early-mid 20th century. Or is this a symptom of "a post-colonial condition brought on by the native collaborator’s false nostalgia for colonial master narratives"?
"Tiffin" is a snack that keeps you going until the next meal. Tiffin also conveys the sense of an occasion where you engage in friendly conversation and discussion. In that spirit, “Tiffin”-- also linked to our acronym TIF -- is a new section that will offer articles covering topics other than “contemporary issues”.
