The scheme has two benefits for the people of the state. Apart from creating employment opportunities for marginalized and unemployed youth, it will help in reducing the cost of transportation of several items, thereby making them inexpensive.

I am angry, disappointed and upset but also relieved that I found out what was going on and alerted authorities including Harvard before any serious damage was done. If after all this the only thing I can be accused of is being stupid, then I'll take it on the chin, learn from it and move on.

Hours after he added seven ministers to his cabinet, BS Yediyurappa, the 77-year-old Chief Minister of Karnataka, came face-to-face with allegations of "son stroke" and "blackmail via CD". The charges are thrown at him by a group of senior leaders of his own party, the BJP, venting after they were not promoted to ministers.

We are at an unprecedented moment in the history of humankind and in the history of our planet. Warning lights - for our societies and the planet - are flashing red.

It is the farmers and they alone who will decide their next course of action. They deserve our full support and solidarity. But we as citizens should be clear about the orders of the Supreme Court and who they benefit.

To police examinations in the current online scenario, we ask students to write answers on paper sheets while keeping a mobile phone or a laptop camera focused on them so that the proctor can see them working. Sometimes, we ask them to work on one device and use the camera of a second device to display the live video.

The United States, has long taken pride in describing itself as a 'nation of laws', in the words of its sixth President, John Quincy Adams. Yet, under its forty-fifth President, Donald J. Trump, it's more apparent than ever that it is also a 'nation of flaws.'

As these trends develop, they are likely to reshape the world as we knew it before and during the pandemic. But to start with, 2021 is, in more ways than one, likely to look like a mirror image of 2020.

Two other events, also significant for American politics, should be noted. First, the state of Georgia, for decades a bastion of White supremacy, gave Democrats control of the US Senate. Then, on the same day (January 6), top Republicans broke with Donald Trump.

The Indian state faces one of the world's most formidable challenges: rolling out a Covid-19 vaccination program for 1.3 billion people. To succeed, many things have to go right in a country that usually gets a lot wrong. The government would be wise to enlist the country's private sector in this gargantuan effort - and soon.

Is Shubman Gill for real? After his cameos in the Melbourne Test, I called clued-up cricketing friends for a reality check. Was he, in fact, the best desi prospect since Tendulkar? Or even, touch wood, the most highly finished debutant in whites since Sunil Gavaskar took guard at the Queen's Park Oval half a century ago? Or was I dreaming?

When the results of the January 6 runoffs are out, we will know whether or not their daughter Kamala Harris will have, as Vice-President and chair, the Senate's casting vote. In either case, she, half-Indian, half-Black, and fully American, will have an important say in the contest between two visions, one holding that your race will determine your status in America, ...

Mamata Banerjee, 65, has the toughest of opponents - Union Home Minister Amit Shah - in her endeavour to get a third term as Chief Minister of Bengal. The last few weeks have seen some key members of her party transplanted firmly to Shah's side in the BJP.

Exclusive excerpt from 'Vajpayee: The Years That Changed India' by Shakti Sinha

Rajinikanth has love and humility as his chief qualities. I believe there will a good political change in Tamil Nadu. He is the last hope in my political life.