Opinion

The great firewall: A deep dive into Chinese media censorship

11 Jul 2023 01:05 AM IST

China, the world’s most populous country and an emerging global power, is known for its strict control over media and information flow. The Chinese government utilises a complex system of media censorship commonly referred to as the Great Firewall to regulate and manipulate the content accessible to its citizens. This

Smart Cities and Unsmart Administrators

10 Jul 2023 00:53 AM IST

The manner in which life has come to a virtual standstill in almost the entire National Capital Region following a heavy downpour over the weekend, is a reflection on the kind of administration which is in place. This needs to be clearly understood that if the road ahead is to

Biden’s recent score card is good on India, Ukraine, but bad on cluster bombs

10 Jul 2023 00:49 AM IST

Joe Biden, US President is definitely scoring major geopolitical wins these days, almost inarguably. Though on some issues, like on cluster bombs and continuing to throw other deadly weapons into the Ukraine war caldron are not looked as positive by India, no doubt and much of the South. However, first,

Vital U.S.-China economic ties

10 Jul 2023 00:47 AM IST

The recent visit of Janet Yellen to Beijing has raised hopes that it may pave the way for two rival global nations to come together for economic reasons, as it plays out to be in favour of both. Last week the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen went on a four-day

India warns Western governments to rein in Khalistanis

08 Jul 2023 01:03 AM IST

The External Affairs Ministry has cautioned several western governments that activities by pro-Khalistani elements in their respective countries cannot be construed as an expression of free speech and freedom. It was pure and simple unlawful action. Therefore, these people who were creating trouble and have threatened to kill Indian diplomats

OpenAI copyright infringement lawsuit: Are AI generated works inherently infringing?

08 Jul 2023 01:02 AM IST

Last week, two US-based authors brought a class action suit against OpenAI for copyright infringement of their works which, among thousands of other works, were used to train the large language model (“LLM”) behind the generative artificial intelligence (“GAI”) – ChatGPT. The essence of the claim in this suit is

SCO SHOULD HAVE UNEQUIVOCALLY CALLED OUT PAKISTAN’S TERROR FACTORY

07 Jul 2023 00:39 AM IST

In what should be seen as a positive outcome of the Delhi Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held recently, all the member countries of the grouping signed up to cooperate in countering radicalization leading to “terrorism, separatism and extremism”. It goes without saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Dichotomy in India’s religious personal laws: A socio-legal conundrum

07 Jul 2023 00:37 AM IST

India is often described as a sub-continental country not just because of its geographical size or population alone, but it offers a massive heterogeneous mix of people from numerous faiths and religions governed by a set of personal laws from different origins. In short, India entails within it a healthy

UCC and gender equality: Need to tread cautiously

07 Jul 2023 00:15 AM IST

Women, who make up nearly a half of India, continue to demand a gender-just code to enjoy equality and justice, irrespective of the community to which they belong. However, the ideal of Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is yet to be achieved in India. Since the Uniform Civil Code was a

Pawar Play: Is he the Maratha strongman or wronged man?

05 Jul 2023 00:09 AM IST

There is an old joke about Sharad Pawar—apparently, he was asked once by Narasimha Rao what does two plus two equal to, and pat came the reply: it depends, are you buying or selling. That sums up Sharad Pawar, because with him there are no straight answers. One never knows

PM Modi’s recent US State visit has taken India-US ties to the next level of equality

05 Jul 2023 00:07 AM IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the United States has historically consolidated the Indo-US relationship to the next level of equality, not merely as a junior ally. The Modi-Biden summit endorsed greater strategic partnership between US and India in all the spheres of international diplomatic affairs, including in defence

India can fill Sweden’s ‘lost’ peacemaker status vacuum

05 Jul 2023 00:04 AM IST

Sweden is increasingly becoming not so nice, and some argue it is moving towards being too subservient to intolerance. The recent burning of the sacred Muslim scripture of the Quran was not only permitted to take place in front of a mosque, but the Swedish government has confirmed that such