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Briefing

Health
Anti-diabetic drug & lifespan
A study by the Belgian doctoral researcher Wouter De Haes (the University of Leuven) and colleagues provides new evidence that metformin, the world’s ...

FIFA World Cup
The greatest spectacle on earth
It comes around once in four years, throwing up heroes, villains and fools and eliciting the most intense of reactions. For football fans the world over, the FIFA World Cup is much more than a tournament. What will the 2014 edition throw up?

Government
Air of uncertainty
Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar will not have to worry about pressures from alliance partners. But one does not know how much space he is willing to carve out for himself and how much space the government is likely to give him.

Letters to the Editor
Election victory THE cover photograph of Narendra Modi in full Hindutva make-up was appropriate and is an indication of things to come (Cover Story, ...

Essay
Impossible agenda
The BJP’s long-running pledges for the abrogation of Article 370, for a Ram temple in Ayodhya, and for a uniform civil code are constitutionally impossible to fulfil, politically divisive and morally outrageous.

Toothless treaty
A new OECD declaration paves the way for access to information on bank accounts in tax havens like Switzerland, but is still skewed in favour of such tax havens.

Physics
Adhesives
FROM Scotch™ tape and cling wrap to the footpads that allow spiders and geckos to climb vertical walls, dry adhesives serve as removable joints ...

Biology
Marine biodiversity
BIODIVERSITY on land has been expanding exponentially, from a few species at the beginning of the Phanerozoic to some million species today. But the ...

Health
Dengue & World Cup
BRAZILIAN medical researchers have assessed the potential for a dengue epidemic during the World Cup football tournament (June 12-July 13). With more ...

Jammu & Kashmir
Concern in Kashmir
The controversy over Article 370 has affected the psyche of the average Kashmiri and given rise to the fear that certain important rights that the people of the State enjoy are going to be snatched away.

Data Card
The beautiful game?
There is anger on the streets of Brazil, which is reeling under economic hardships, as it plays host to the most expensive Football World Cup so far.

Football World Cup
Spectacular moments from the FIFA World Cup
It comes around once in four years, throwing up heroes, villains and fools and eliciting the most intense of reactions. For football fans the world over, the FIFA World Cup is much more than a tournament. What will the 2014 edition throw up?

Documentary
Songs of the soil
A video documentary pays tribute to the immense contribution of theTamil lyricist Pattukottai Kalyanasundaram, whose songs were rooted in the socialist ideology.

Twists in Jain hawala case
THE “Jain Hawala Diaries” case, which shook the politics of the country in the 1990s, is far from resolved. Although the main case against leading ...

Interview: Prashant Bhushan
‘Stop allowing participatory notes’
Interview with Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

Ukraine
Looming civil war
Russia withdraws its troops from the border with Ukraine, but the latter rejects dialogue with the Russian-speaking people in the eastern region, claiming that military action is the only way to put down their revolt.

Who is afraid of illicit finance?
Illicit capital outflow has increased significantly after neoliberal policies were introduced in 1991. Committed as it is to the same economic model, can the NDA government curb generation of black wealth and bring back the black money stashed abroad?

Cover Story
Black money & grey areas
The decision to constitute a Special Investigation Team to investigate cases of black money stashed away in foreign banks will prove to be an acid test for the Narendra Modi government as the fight against the black economy calls for strong political will.

Interview: Prof. Arun Kumar
‘Political will matters ultimately’
Interview with Professor Arun Kumar, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Railways
Poor track record
FDI in the Railways without fixing the conditions that lead to frequent accidents seems to be an overly ambitious idea.

West Bengal
Driven to despair
A PALL of uncertainty looms over the future of the iconic Ambassador car and the 2,600 workers involved in its production at Hindustan Motors after ...

Kerala
A takeoff aborted
A CONTROVERSIAL private international airport project at Aranmula in south Kerala, facilitated by the State government despite tenacious protests ...

Foreign policy
Diplomatic surprise
The invitation to the Pakistan Prime Minister to attend the swearing-in of Narendra Modi may have been a diplomatic coup but Nawaz Sharif agreed to come as he was looking for something more substantial than a photo-op.

Maharashtra
Reprieve for Yakub Memon
ON June 2 the Supreme Court stayed the execution of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, one of the key conspirators in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case. Memon ...

Judiciary
From Bar to Bench
The Supreme Court collegium, going against accepted norms, has recommended the appointment of two practising lawyers of the Bar as judges in the Supreme Court.

Crime
A cry from Badaun
The gang rape and murder of two minor girls in Uttar Pradesh brings to the fore factors such as caste dynamics and police apathy behind the growing crimes against women.

Ayodhya
Building plans
In the new political climate, there is a pronounced assertiveness among Sangh Parivar outfits on core Hindutva programmes, including the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

No gravy train
AT present, foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Indian Railways is limited to some sectors, but the buzz is that the Narendra Modi government may ...

Gopinath Munde
Grass-roots leader
Gopinath Pandurang Munde (1949-2014) was a simple man comfortable in his rural roots. A stranger to Machiavellian political machinations, he owed his success to sheer determination.

Health
Dengue & World Cup
BRAZILIAN medical researchers have assessed the potential for a dengue epidemic during the World Cup football tournament (June 12-July 13). With more ...

New window to the universe
With the recent discovery of very-high-energy cosmic neutrinos by the South Pole experiment IceCube, neutrino astronomy can be said to have finally arrived.