Reports

Did Berkshire Hathaway, one of the largest insurance companies in the world resort to a back-door entry into India in order to circumvent caps on foreign direct investment (FDI) in the insurance industry? A closer look at the facts indicate enough grounds for suspicion. Berkshire India Private Limited is a majority owned non-direct subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc incorporated in India, with 100 per cent FDI in paid-up capital. It is a licensed corporate agent of Bajaj Allianz General...

A recent Tata DoCoMo advertisement has drawn flak from all sections of society for depicting domestic workers in a negative light. The ad, one in a series of 13 with the catchline “No Getting Away”, shows a maid stealing a mobile phone from her employer and getting caught in the act. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the self-regulatory body of the advertising industry in India, has so far received eight complaints from citizens over the ad. “This advertisement is extremely...

South Africa has made a move that will not please rhino conservationists anywhere. It’s a move that may soon seek lifting of the global world ban on rhino horn trading, something that has been in place for 34 years. The Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa last month placed two advertisements on its tenders website to initiate a series of studies that could pave the way for a resumption of controlled rhino-horn trading. These are ostensibly meant to include a detailed assessment...

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s recalcitrant stand on the sharing of the Teesta river waters with Bangladesh has been widely criticised in that it has severely strained bilateral relations. In the bargain what has been sidelined has been the issue of the river itself. The cruel truth is that the last stretch of the Teesta river is under threat of disappearing underground — forever. The cascade of “run-of-the-river” dams being built on the Teesta and its tributaries require extensive...

It has been 15 years since Khajan Singh’s land went under water. A single crop earlier could have feed him and his family for two long years. But today, they are a victim of dire hunger and unmitigated malnutrition. Khajan is from Aanjanwada village of Alirajpur district in Madhya Pradesh. It is one of the 15 villages been affected in Alirajpur due to the submergence caused by the Sardar Sarovar Dam Project (SSP). The only way to reach this community is by a boat from the nearest small town. SSP...

Reliance Entertainment has gone overboard after obtaining a John Doe order from the Delhi High Court to prevent piracy of its film Bodyguard, that was released this week. The company has sent over two thousand notices to internet service providers, seeking bans on file-sharing websites, and website owners, requesting them to find and remove all offending content that is currently hosted on their websites or may be uploaded in future. The court order restrains websites, cable operators and ISPs...

This should come across as good news to one and all – Adidas has joined Nike and Puma in committing publicly to eliminate all discharges of hazardous chemicals throughout their supply chain and across the entire lifecycle of their products by 2020. The move from Adidas comes after a relentless detox campaign waged by environmental organisation Greenpeace International on the issue since July this year. Adidas acknowledged that Greenpeace had directed its campaign towards sporting goods companies...

A circular issued by the Kerala government directing the public education department to deploy online school management software called Sampoorna in schools across the state has drawn flak from civil liberties activists. According to the circular, details of as many as 6 million students spanning over 15,000 schools in the state would be captured in this scheme. All schoolchildren will soon have unique identification numbers (UID), which will help in tracking their movements in educational...

Kashmir’s much-hyped literary festival has been cancelled. The organisers of ‘Harud: The Autumn Literature Festival’, scheduled for September 24-26 in Srinagar, cited the possibility of violence as the main reason behind this decision. The festival secretariat said they were concerned about the possibility of protests and the "heightened" nature of the debate. The debate in question was the incisive criticism that the organisers faced from writers, journalists, filmmakers and artists, among...

Many university students use scholarly databases like they would Google, revealing an astonishingly poor understanding of how to refine searches for better research results, a US study has found. The Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) Project, a two-year study of the student research process involving five US universities, included extensive interviews with students, librarians and other academics in an effort to better understand 21st Century student research habits...