ar 15 Maharashtra SRPF Jawans test positive for COVID-19 in Pune By www.newkerala.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 05:09:02 +0530 Full Article
ar Disturbed architect attacks 3 Mumbai cops with chopper By www.newkerala.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 07:27:02 +0530 Full Article
ar 714 cops have tested positive for COVID-19 so far: Maharashtra Police By www.newkerala.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 07:45:02 +0530 Full Article
ar M'rashtra Covid-19 deaths cross 775, cases surpass 20K mark By www.newkerala.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 08:21:01 +0530 Full Article
ar No fee hike in Maharashtra schools for academic year 2020-21: State Education Dept By www.newkerala.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 09:06:02 +0530 Full Article
ar White House Virus Task Force members face quarantine By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 11:07:15 IST Three members of the White House coronavirus task force, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, placed themselves in quarantine after contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19, another stark reminder that not even one of the nation's most secure buildings is immune from the virus. Full Article
ar Home quarantine enough for those coming from other States: CM By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 20:34:42 +0530 Govt. alters its earlier stand based on recommendations of an expert group Full Article Thiruvananthapuram
ar A dirty war’s casualties By www.hardnewsmedia.com Published On :: Wed, 08 Nov 2017 11:11:05 +0000 Author: Sanjay KapoorMore attention needs to be paid to the Syrian Grand Mufti’s charges that the Middle East is being destabilised by Western forces I met the Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, in Damascus a few months after he had lost his son in a terror attack in 2012. Impeccably turned out with his turban and flowing robes, he looked understandably distraught. Those were the early days of the Syrian civil war and there was a struggle to interpret and analyse why violence was sneakily spreading in a secular country where President Bashar al-Assad was visibly popular. The Grand Mufti, who is considered one of the top three people in Syria, was uncertain why assassins targeted his 21-year-old son who was still studying in university, and was to get married the day he was killed. The answers came to him when he finally met his son’s killers. In one of his media interviews, he revealed how the two killers had no clue to either the identity of his son or motive. They were given the registration number of his car and a paltry amount of British pounds—350 each. His son’s life was worth only 700 pounds, the Mufti had said ruefully. After meeting his son’s killers, who were barely out of their teens, the Mufti pleaded with the authorities that they should be freed, but they had to face due process of law. Since then, the Mufti has seen his beloved country bloodied by a war heaped on its people by competing regional and global ambitions. He was recently in Delhi where he grandly announced that the five-year war, which has left more than 4,00,000 people dead and dislocated millions of others, was about to end. With relief and joy written on his face, the Grand Mufti described in detail how the secular Syrian Arab Army with the help of allies had defeated terrorists from over 40 countries. He blamed some of Syria’s neighbours and world powers for the endless war that the Middle East region had been subjected to. He claimed that these terrorists belonging to Daesh and other outfits like Nusra were recruited from different countries. There were many women, too, who were lured into this mythical Islamic State led by a Khalifa through Facebook or other social media platforms. The Mufti said that the fighters had abandoned the women from Chechnya, Tunisia, Jordan and some European countries after they began to lose their hold over towns in the last few months. He also hinted that some fighters had been mysteriously air-lifted by helicopters to safe places. Perhaps the Grand Mufti was lending credence to the allegations by Russian armed forces that before the fall of Dier-al-Zor, Syria’s seventh largest city, unmarked aircraft had pulled out hardcore Islamic State fighters to safer havens. The implications of the Mufti’s charge and that of the Russian armed forces are serious. There are obvious suggestions that the Islamic State was able to attain much success due to the support it received from covert operatives belonging to Western powers and their allies in the region. Another example of this relationship, as pointed out by the Russian Defence Ministry, is the circumstances in which a three-star General was killed while on military duty in Syria. The Russians claimed that the location and coordinates of the General were provided to terrorists working together with US troops. There have been no denials of these charges, but the bizarre manner in which the Arab Spring became a reason for regime changes in the Middle East by reviving old ethnic and sectarian fault lines has lessons for many societies, according to the Grand Mufti. He wanted India, a secular society that was under colonial rule like Syria, to remain vigilant about forces that wanted to disrupt settled societies. He gave the example of the Rohingya crisis that, in his reckoning, was getting inordinate publicity in the Western media. He believed the crisis was being used to destabilise not just Myanmar, but also China and India. Interestingly, the Mufti also visited Lucknow, which is a major centre of Islamic learning. Here he spoke about the need to rise above the sectarian divide between Shias and Sunnis, and look ahead and not backwards for inspiration. In these times, when sectarian issues are reordering the Islamic World, the Mufti’s message gains great importance. The big question is—will he be on the winning side? From HardNews print issue: OCTOBER 2017Topic: SyriaMiddle EastLead Image: Full Article
ar Paradise Papers: The moral dilemmas of tax avoidance By www.hardnewsmedia.com Published On :: Wed, 08 Nov 2017 12:54:59 +0000 Mohan Guruswamy The tranche of documents uncovered recently has not only brought several stalwarts of Indian politics, cinema industry, and business tycoons under scanner but has also thrown up pertinent questions over the moral dilemmas of avoiding tax The paradise in the Paradise Papers refers to tax havens of low or even no taxation. Such havens usually are shadowy and sleazy little countries and principalities such as the Cayman Islands, Lichtenstein and Monaco, and sometimes entities within countries like Jersey, Guernsey, Bermuda in the UK and Delaware and Puerto Rico in the USA. Then there are low taxation countries like Switzerland, Singapore and Dubai that assure secretive rich people of their privacy. Essentially a tax haven exists to cheat sovereign states of their lawful incomes. The Tax Justice Network campaign group estimates that corporate tax avoidance costs governments $500bn a year, while personal tax avoidance costs $200bn a year. This in effect means that anywhere between $20-30 trillion of business transactions are sheltered from taxations. Moody’s estimated that in 2016 giant American technology companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple were hoarding about $1.84 trillion cash in offshore havens. Clearly they are avoiding tax and as bending the rules of the tax system is not illegal unlike tax evasion; they are operating within the letter, but perhaps not the spirit, of the law. In the early 1980’s, shaken up by the number of scandals in Wall Street, and by the number of its MBA graduates who were found wanting in ethical and moral values, the Harvard Business School made a course on “Leadership and Corporate Accountability” a core requirement. I am sure Jayant Sinha, a Harvard MBA, had to do this course and would have scored a high grade in it. Such courses now are in the core curriculum of the business schools attended by the other two young politicians also named in the Paradise Papers or capers if you will. Sachin Pilot graduated from the famous Wharton School of Business and Karti Chidambaram took his business masters from Texas and a law degree from Cambridge to boot. Doing the required ethics course is one thing but it is quite something else to be able to resolve moral dilemmas of what John Kenneth Galbraith described as the “HBS’s ethical view of capitalism which derives straight out of the Protestant ethic and its transformational view of money, in which the ability to accumulate wealth is a reflection of one’s character.” The charge against Jayant Sinha is that while acting as an Omidyar Network representative was on the board of a California company that made a loan to that company’s Cayman subsidiary. Usually such a loan to such a subsidiary suggests a fiddle. Whether Sinha knew this or did not know it is something else? Clearly the evidence does not suggest any malfeasance. But clearly there is room for skepticism. Omidyar Network proclaims its belief: “Just as eBay created the opportunity for millions of people to start their own businesses, we believe market forces can be a potent driver for positive social change.” Grand words but that hardly conceals the true goal that is to make bucks, sometimes fast ones too. Again as Galbraith put it: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” Jayant, then fresh out of one of the IIT’s, worked with me way back in the mid 1980’s on a paper that proposed the mass construction of smokeless challahs for rural homes as a profitable employment for hundreds of thousands of rural workers. I remember it as a bit of an elaborate scheme that also computed the savings due to improved health results. It was published in this newspaper and the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi took note of it. I was impressed enough to write a recommendation when he applied for a Masters in Energy Management at Pennsylvania. I next met him when I was serving as his fathers Advisor in the Finance Ministry. Jayant and his wife were both working with foreign companies investing in Indian stocks. He was apprehensive about a proposal made by me to disinvest PSU stocks by selling them to the governments banks for onward restructure and disinvestment. The minister had clearly spoken to him. At that time too I wondered if the HBS’s core business ethics course would have seen conflict of interest issues in it? The minister however had plenty of flex in him. To my mind tax avoidance is just as reprehensible as tax evasion. Sinha was too junior in the Finance Ministry to have expressed views on this. It would have been unlikely though for that is not the HBS way. The previous Finance Minister, himself a Harvard MBA, would not have any left footprints for young Sinha to tread on. Neither would the present lawyer Finance Minister. CorruptionParadise PapersPanama PapersGovernment of IndiaLead Image: Full Article
ar DECEMBER 2017 - JANUARY 2018 By www.hardnewsmedia.com Published On :: Mon, 15 Jan 2018 10:16:44 +0000 Our 14 year special on the politics of food in India Full Article
ar February 2018 By www.hardnewsmedia.com Published On :: Fri, 09 Feb 2018 07:08:12 +0000 The February issue of Hardnews dwells on the ongoing political turmoil in the Maldives, looks at the crackdown initiated by President Abdulla Yameen against dissenters and scrutinises the funds coming in from China in the form of big-ticket projects. Full Article
ar MARCH 2018 By www.hardnewsmedia.com Published On :: Mon, 26 Mar 2018 09:22:52 +0000 The cover of Hardnews Magazine's March issue looks at the shifting geopolitics of South Asia. As India re-evaluates its stance and toes a new line on China, a detailed story reflects on why New Delhi must pause to reflect on the possible outcome. Full Article
ar Mangaluru: 'Smart' push to coastal health care By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 21:16:00 IST Work on the 37-bedded ICU at the new super specialty block of district Wenlock Hospital is in final stages of completion. Part of area-based development of Mangaluru Smart City mission, new ICU that is being set up will initially be used to handle need for this critical life support system that the global pandemic could bring forth Full Article
ar Mangaluru people fume over migrant's arrival By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 21:22:55 IST Arrival of a migrant labourer from Bagalkot in a truck has created panic among residents of Urwa in the city. People in the area insisted that he should be quarantined and undergo tests for Covid-19. In fact, the migrant labourer, who is a native of Bagalkot, was working in Mangaluru. He had gone to his native place in Bagalkot before the lockdown announcement in March. Full Article
ar Karnataka's Covid-19 count reaches 794 By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 19:22:28 IST With 41 new cases of Covid-19 reported on Saturday, the total number of positive cases in Karnataka has reached 794, said the state health department. Full Article
ar Govt to decide on working hours & wage arrears By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 06:12:08 IST The Karnataka government said it'll work with industry associations and workers' unions to arrive at amicable solutions on the number of working hours and wage arrears in the current scenario. Full Article
ar Garment units can open in red zones in K'taka By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 06:28:06 IST The Karnataka government has allowed garment units in red zones but outside containment zones to resume operations with 33% work force. Full Article
ar Leopard drags, kills boy sleeping next to mother By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 04:27:00 IST A three-year-old boy, who was sleeping next to his mother in their house near Magadi, was dragged out and killed by a leopard on Friday midnight. The child’s family had kept the door open as it was too hot when the leopard sneaked in Full Article
ar B'luru: Partitions to shield cabbies, passengers By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 07:57:03 IST To protect both cabbies and passengers during the Covid-19 pandemic, some taxi operators in the city have installed plastic sheets in their vehicles to separate the driver and rear seats. Full Article
ar Will Corona kill Areca? By bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 10:51:14 IST (This story originally appeared in BangaloreMirror on May 10, 2020) Full Article
ar Only 2% of Covid-19 beds occupied in Karnataka By timesofindia.indiatimes.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 08:00:00 IST Karnataka’s efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus have ensured that healthcare systems are not overwhelmed with cases. This is evident from the low bed occupancy in dedicated Covid-19 hospitals. Ninety-eight per cent of the beds earmarked for coronavirus patients across the state are vacant. Full Article
ar Moodle App for online teaching-learning in colleges By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 22:03:59 +0530 Tiruchi The Higher Education Department in Tamil Nadu has chosen Moodle platform for online teaching-learning in government arts and science colleges. Full Article Tiruchirapalli
ar Flying back home, away from harrowing experiences By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 22:33:18 +0530 Many return for better medical treatment amid fears of being stranded abroad Full Article Kochi
ar 177 Indians stranded in Malaysia arrive in Tiruchi By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 10:26:05 +0530 The flight was received at a specially prepared bay at the Tiruchi International Airport. Full Article Tiruchirapalli
ar Tight checking on inter-state border at Walayar By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 22:53:23 +0530 Several people who wanted to travel to Palakkad in Kerala via Coimbatore were made to wait at the inter-State border at Walayar on Saturday as they di Full Article Coimbatore
ar MSMEs likely to start functioning from Monday By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 22:58:54 +0530 Several micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) in Coimbatore Corporation limits are expected to start operations on Monday. “The order issu Full Article Coimbatore
ar 200 ATMs without security guards closed in Erode By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sun, 10 May 2020 09:23:16 +0530 The district administration and the Corporation has asked all banks to ensure security guards at the ATMs so that they can provide hand sanitisers to the people visiting the kiosks. Full Article Coimbatore
ar Dharavi adds 25 coronavirus cases By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 23:01:24 +0530 Twenty five more COVID-19 cases were recorded in Dharavi on Saturday, pushing the tally in the slum pocket to 833. The area also recorded one more dea Full Article Mumbai
ar ‘Promote superfine paddy varieties on 35 lakh acres’ By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 23:03:35 +0530 Agriculture Minister holds meeting on preparedness ahead of kharif season Full Article Hyderabad
ar ‘Why fresh tenders worth ₹21,000 cr. for Kaleshwaram?’ By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 23:12:32 +0530 Congress says Central Vigilance will be approached on ‘corruption’ in project Full Article Hyderabad
ar Don’t stop being virus wary: Eatala By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 23:13:59 +0530 He reviewed measures taken to curb transmission of coronavirus Full Article Hyderabad
ar ‘Virus warriors’ of Sikh body to get ₹2 lakh cover By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 23:34:25 +0530 The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) on Saturday announced an insurance cover of ₹2 lakh for its employees who are involved in frontli Full Article Delhi
ar Clarify stand on AP’s plan to divert Krishna water: CPI By www.thehindu.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 23:35:28 +0530 Chada Venkat Reddy wants Telangana government to announce its water policy Full Article Hyderabad
ar JNU tentative academic calendar released for Monsoon session, set to return to classes by June 25 By Published On :: JNU tentative academic calendar released for Monsoon session, set to return to classes by June 25 Full Article
ar CBSE evaluation for class 10, 12 board exams to be done at home by teachers By Published On :: CBSE evaluation for class 10, 12 board exams to be done at home by teachers Full Article
ar Rs 1 lakh crore Delhi-Mumbai Expressway project offers huge investment opportunities: Gadkari By Published On :: Rs 1 lakh crore Delhi-Mumbai Expressway project offers huge investment opportunities: Gadkari Full Article
ar Rishi Kapoor wanted son Ranbir Kapoor to marry THIS person and not Alia Bhatt? By Published On :: Rishi Kapoor wanted son Ranbir Kapoor to marry THIS person and not Alia Bhatt? Full Article
ar Mother's Day Quotes: 15 meaningful quotes by famous authors to melt your mother's heart By Published On :: Mother's Day Quotes: 15 meaningful quotes by famous authors to melt your mother's heart Full Article
ar Meet Bengaluru’s Covid warrior mothers, who are leading the fight against the pandemic By Published On :: Meet Bengaluru’s Covid warrior mothers, who are leading the fight against the pandemic Full Article
ar The Warrior Moms: Meet the mothers leading the battle against COVID19 By Published On :: The Warrior Moms: Meet the mothers leading the battle against COVID19 Full Article
ar Mom's the world: Women share the best marital advice they got from their mother By Published On :: Mom's the world: Women share the best marital advice they got from their mother Full Article
ar Unni Mukundan has a jolly interaction with healthcare workers By Published On :: Unni Mukundan has a jolly interaction with healthcare workers Full Article
ar SS Karthikeya walks out of his next venture By Published On :: SS Karthikeya walks out of his next venture Full Article
ar Prabhas films bag top spots in BARC ratings By Published On :: Prabhas films bag top spots in BARC ratings Full Article
ar Shriya Saran urges fans to help small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis By Published On :: Shriya Saran urges fans to help small businesses during the COVID-19 crisis Full Article
ar Santhanam's Server Sundaram to release in theatres By Published On :: Santhanam's Server Sundaram to release in theatres Full Article
ar Mother’s Day 2020: ‘One Day isn’t enough to thank our mothers’, says Divya Khosla Kumar who feels we should express our gratitude towards them whenever we feel it By Published On :: Mother’s Day 2020: ‘One Day isn’t enough to thank our mothers’, says Divya Khosla Kumar who feels we should express our gratitude towards them whenever we feel it Full Article
ar Mother's Day 2020: Sara Ali Khan shares a beautiful throwback picture and thanks her 'Maa ki Maa' for creating her mommy By Published On :: Mother's Day 2020: Sara Ali Khan shares a beautiful throwback picture and thanks her 'Maa ki Maa' for creating her mommy Full Article
ar Gymnastics: Italian Lodadio cultivates his garden to stay fit By Published On :: Gymnastics: Italian Lodadio cultivates his garden to stay fit Full Article
ar Final Olympic archery qualification event in June next year By Published On :: Final Olympic archery qualification event in June next year Full Article
