Category: WT Focus

Rice  is  the  major  staple  food  in  Asia and about  92%  of  the  world’s  rice  is  produced  and  consumed  in Asia. However, the quality of irrigation water is  being  reduced  by  chemical  pollution  and  salinization,  and  the  water  resource  itself  is  being  depleted  by falling  groundwater  tables,  silting  of  reservoirs,  and  increased  competition  from  urban  and  industrial  uses. Asia now needs to grow more rice with less water to sustain the continuing population growth. Indian farmers have been consistently fighting water crises. According to The Diplomat, an international current-affairs magazine,…

Read More

The recent controversy of the claim of Kamal Hassan’s party MNM that Tamil Nadu BJP President Smt. Tamilisai Soundararajan enrolling has brought to the fore the enrollment procedures adopted by this party. The party enrolls members on a dubious procedure whereby you can be enrolled by anyone who knows your email id, only if the enrolling person has a mobile phone. This means if  you have any VVIP’s official or personal email id, which is very easy to get, you can easily enroll him or her as a member of…

Read More

The term ‘euthanasia’ is formed from the Greek terms ‘eu’ and ‘thanatos’ which mean ‘good’ and ‘death’ respectively. The term has several meanings just like most other terms in our language; however the implications here are immense. Euthanasia generally has no commonly accepted and a philosophically grounded core meaning. There are several forms of euthanasia like active and passive euthanasia, voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. Active euthanasia occurs when a person plays an active role by directly causing the patient’s death, like giving excessive amount of painkillers. On the other…

Read More

The crisis in the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) is far from over despite the partial roll-back of fares. Unlike the fare raise of 2011, this increase is seeing uncompromising protests from public, because people now see the loss as a result of large scale, unabated corruption. With the protestors unwilling to compromise, the government has to cautiously chalk its path from here. Protestors call for a complete roll-back and although the government has partially reduced the hike , the truth remains that even if the government was allowed…

Read More

With over seven decades passed after independence, the caste-based reservation system in the country is only going the same way, unchecked and with greater momentum. In fact job reservations were evident even before independence under the reign of maharajas and the British raj. Although these were once reasonable initiatives and actions, these have not moved with the times and nothing much has changed. On the contrary, the prospect of a job based purely on caste has only been increasing with politics and elections. For any family, a government job and…

Read More

The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation has started a new route that no one expected or at least wanted. All the eight state-owned transport corporations in the state with most of their property including their fleet, office buildings, bus depots, besides retirement benefit funds of all employees has been mortgaged in banks for about Rs 15,000 crore. The total accumulated losses for the Corporation at the end of 2015-16 stood at Rs 16,145 crore, which is 19% percent more than that in previous year. The eight transport corporations made 11%…

Read More

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said 178 items have been put into lower tax category of 18% out of 228 items in 28% tax bracket previously. He held a brief press conference after the 23rd GST Council meeting in Guwahati, Assam. The GST Council slashed tax rate on a wide range of mass use items– ranging from chewing gums to detergents–to 18% cent from existing 28%. On 13 items, the tax rates have been reduced from 18% to 12%, while tax rates have been slashed to 5% on five items from…

Read More