She only knows at the end of each day whether there will be enough money to survive tomorrow. Does this woman have rights, the right to produce a child? Or should someone else decide what her rights are, and conclude that sterilisation is the only option, asks Kalpana Sharma.

Hundreds of child marriages are held across Rajasthan with no one stopping them. Tiny boys and girls, some of them asleep and all of them unaware of what is happening, are betrothed to each other. The reality sinks in when the children attain puberty by which time they are told they have no choice. But they do, writes Kalpana Sharma.

The IMF's meeting in Singapore next week is expected to endorse a decision to enhance voting powers for four middle-income countries: China, South Korea, Mexico, and Turkey. For a 184-member body still controlled by seven developed countries, this won't pass for democratisation, says George Monbiot.

The Niketa and Harish Mehta case has thrown issues that concern individual choice, ethics, technology and the law. In each instance, there are no clear guidelines, there is nothing that is black and white, writes Kalpana Sharma.

The quality of teaching and research in Indian universities has rapidly declined. Surely this has something to do with the manner in which we appoint those at their helm, writes Ramachandra Guha.

The survey of child labour in agriculture has helped to draw attention once again to many issues that must be addressed if every child is to have a meaningful right to education, writes Kalpana Sharma.

There is an urgent need to make politics belong to the people. A big tweak of the way parties function is needed to ensure this, writes R Balasubramaniam.

Pope Francis’s Encyclical talks about poverty, social inequality, climate change, and other global crises mankind has created and proposes newer ways to resolve them. Ashish Kothari finds the Encyclical lacking in certain aspects but hopes that other religious and political leaders will learn to stand up and speak up like the Pope.

A multitude of grassroots movements are emerging across the country in resistance to the mainstream economy and polity. These initiatives are exploring sustainable, equitable and  just paths to human well-being. Ashish Kothari and Pallav Das offer an insight into the need for such movements.

A media that cherishes its independence must recognize this freedom is as essential for the judiciary to deliver justice as it is for the media to observe it impartially, says Dasu Krishnamoorty

The media is unconsciously desensitising society towards the youth, and pressurising them to conform to a stereotype, says Shivam Vij.

Dasu Krishnamoorty examines reporting in the aftermath of Godhra and the subsequent riots in Gujarat.

Frederick Noronha reports on the success of World Comics India, which has created successful material, especially for the regional press.

Applying for and getting a license to set up a community radio station in India is convoluted. A new publication offers a step-by-step guide to the entire process along with useful information on how and what to prepare before applying.

Inspired by a recently released movie, Shoma Chatterji explores how the lipstick and burkha establishes a woman’s identity in public spaces and liberates them in private.

Maternity leave is generally not available to adoptive mothers in India, even though an adoptive mother needs it just as much as a biological mother. The central government recently passed an order reversing this situation in part, thanks to Atmaja, an association of adoptive parents in Kolkata. Ranjita Biswas reports.

Free Bird Productions, a Kolkata-based documentary unit that makes cultural, ethnographic and documentary films, has made two of the more noteworthy films about the recent events in Singur and Nandigram. Shoma Chatterji notes the unanswered questions the films raise.

The rural Muslim women of Murshidabad district in West Bengal have circumvented religious curbs and successfully used a prevalent religious tradition to eke out a living as well as create social awareness. Ajitha Menon has more.

Motivated by the media attention in Nandigram, six volunteers of Child Rights and You decided to examine how the urban poor are faring against State-sponsored eviction. Shoma Chatterji reports.

Eleven years after journalist Rina Mukherjee was fired following her allegations of sexual harassment against a senior, the West Bengal Industrial Tribunal passes an order against The Statesman, offering hope of redress for other victims. Navya P K reports.

Science's biggest tragedy, as we are reminded by the Columbia disaster, is that truly independent criticism is simply gone from its midst, says Devinder Sharma.

Has the introduction of Bt Cotton been successful? The deliberate attempt to find a "yes" answer has required a lot of incredulous 'science', says Devinder Sharma.

With the 2003-4 budget giving agriculture the go-by, Devinder Sharma outlines five criteria that nation's finance minister must keep in mind while crafting budgetary policy for agriculture.

President Kalam's vision for rural development is at odds with Ashutosh Gowariker's Swades where Shah Rukh Khan charts a simple location-specific path to village development. The two different routes to the same objective bring out the conflict in our understanding of the rural crisis, says Devinder Sharma.

The real reason behind the Congress' performance in the recently concluded Assembly Elections may not be the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party per se, but more the economic concerns of the real aam aadmi. Devinder Sharma analyses.

Though FDI in retail is being projected as a cure-all for the ills in the agriculture and food sector, Devinder Sharma cites examples from the world over to argue why we should not be pinning our hopes on it.

The depressing sameness of the days for those locked-in as the epidemic rages, is relieved only by the 24X7 flow of electricity – the juice that keeps us all connected, informed, entertained and as summer...

At a time when the government should be deeply troubled by the coronavirus pandemic and devising long-term health strategies, its inner circles are busy planning the upgrade of Parliament House and the Central Vista. But...

India’s lockdown has been eased by dividing the country into red, orange and green zones, with high, medium and minimal infections so far, and correspondingly tough curbs on economic activity. This can at best be...

Pakistan has decided to lift lockdown to kick-start its tottering economy. The growth engine of Pakistan’s economic revival is powered by CPEC, flagship project of the Belt Road Initiative (BRI). It is tempting to conjure...

During an interview with TOI, world No. 3 Thiem spoke about his comeback plans and how he is keeping himself ready for the season, as and when it restarts.

Virat Kohli is in a good frame of mind which gives him confidence of being able to pick up from where he left as and when cricket resumes in the post-Covid world. "... once I am in a good frame of mind and I am keeping myself positive and happy, whenever I return to the game, I know I will be in a good position to start again from where we left," Kohli said.

Former India opener Gautam Gambhir doesn't see major changes in the way cricket is played in the post COVID-19 scenario besides the ban on using saliva on the ball. The International Cricket Council is considering legalisation of the usage of artificial substances to shine the ball instead of saliva.

On the day TOI highlighted the worsening state of Delhi’s air, the National Green Tribunal cited the report and issued a slew of directions to immediately address the problem.

Jet had last Friday said that the incident happened when their plane was trying to take off from the runway. But the preliminary probe by Saudi authorities has found that the lane was trying to take off from a taxiway parallel to the take off-designated runway at full power.

Unlike conventional universities in the state, students of Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) will not be promoted to the next level without examinations.

Tim Weaver took 10 years to write his debut novel "Chasing the Dead" but less than six months to shoot off his latest "The Dead Tracks" .

Pellerin was head of astrophysics at NASA for a decade. He was held responsible for launching the $1.7 billion Hubble telescope with a flawed mirror.

Biting — yet sensitive. He’s a study in contrasts. Just like his books. Writer Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize in 2008 with his novel “White Tiger”. In the first interview given globally over his new book “Last Man in Tower”, Adiga now tells Srijana Mitra Das about being a small-town boy, falling in love with Mumbai, capturing the people and philosophies rich India overlooks, writing being his fate, generating controversy — and why he might just step away now.

When an IIT graduate wrote a bestseller that also became an award-winning movie, he inspired a legion of young authors. The result?

Here is a list of some of the most iconic mothers from literature.

When we are about to take one of the most important decisions of our life, how can we not take her advice, right? On this Mother's Day, we asked a few women about the best piece of marital advice they had received from their mother. Here's their story.

Britain's deputy chief medical officer said on Saturday he was confident the coronavirus "R" number, a measure of the rate of contagion, was below 1 across the United Kingdom.

In football, a banana kick causes the ball to curve or bend in flight. When hit, the ball curves away from the kicker and then bends back in.

Syndicalism is a form of trade unionism and has its origins in France. It aims at the abolition of the capitalist owners and the appropriation - by the workers - of all the methods used in an industry, and the products resulting therefrom.

The helicopter shot is an unorthodox cricket shot, reportedly invented by Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

There are stories. And there are remarkable stories. And then there are people who write remarkable stories. Perhaps Pulitzer-prize winning writer Geeta Anand belongs to the third category.

Is the Punjabi kudi as brash as some make her out to be? What lies beyond the Kashmiri’s serene beauty?