Reports

It's an attractive, furry, and adorable creature. Ironically and unfortunately, that is what makes the red panda a vulnerable species. It is not critically endangered yet, but the potential threat posed to it is immense. TRAFFIC, the international wildlife trade monitoring network, has just released a report Sikkim—under the sign of the red panda that documents the potential threats posed to this mammal, described as the "most handsome mammal on Earth" by Frederic Cuvier, who is credited to have...

In less than a week, as many as three ceasefire agreements have been extended in the Northeast. Technically, these are not called ceasefires; they are dubbed Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreements. Without going into the semantical or technical differences between the two, we know there's one thing that ought to be at the core of these agreements — to bring about peace and stability. On December 29, came an official statement saying that the SoO Agreement with the Dima Halam Daogah (Nunisa)...

Human remains said to be over 400,000 years old have been discovered in Israel. The discovery challenges conventional theory that the Homo sapiens species originated in Africa. Avi Gopher, of Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, told news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) that testing of stalagmites, stalactites and other material found in a cave east of Tel Aviv indicated that eight teeth uncovered there could be the earliest traces so far of our species. Though the first teeth were...

Twenty years after the fall of the Communist regime, politics in Hungary has come a full circle. It has virtually abolished freedom of the press and also assumed presidency of the European Union (EU). The new media law passed on December 21 by the Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz), which enjoys a two-thirds majority in parliament, accords the government sweeping powers to monitor the press. Ironically, Hungary also marked its metamorphosis from being a mere satellite State of the erstwhile USSR...

It has been a week since the US cables released by WikiLeaks revealed the extent of extrajudicial measures being resorted to by the State in Kashmir. For the people of Kashmir, the revelation has been a vindication. Everyone knew about it. The leaked cables, however, reveal the irony of it as well: others knew too. And they turned a blind eye to the state of inhuman affairs. Both the Indian and state governments are complicit of torturing political prisoners. There cannot be a second argument...

India's Central Board of Film Certification has refused a censor certificate to Inshallah, Football, a documentary film about an aspiring footballer who was denied the right to travel abroad on the pretext that father was a militant in the 1990s. The film's director Ashvin Kumar said, "This morning (December 23) I received a call from the Indian censor board stating that after having referred the film to a revision panel, censor certification will not be given. We have not been asked to make any...

The season of scandals is still on for the Indian news media. This time it is about the tall claims that Indian newspapers often make. The Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has upheld complaints against advertisements of three newspaper brands Prabhat Khabar, DNA and Nai Dunia. All advertisements concerned were released in September this year. The case against Prabhat Khabar was that it had staked claim to the number one position in Jharkhand...

The usually accepted argument among psychologists had been that marriage generally reduces illegal and aggressive behaviours in men. There were, however, disagreements over the reason for this. A group of researchers now says that the association is a function of matrimony itself or as well as less "antisocial" men being simply more likely to get married. The team of researchers from the Michigan State University led by behaviour geneticist S Alexandra Burt examined the data of 289 pairs of male...

Indians don't see any institution as clean. From political parties and NGOs to media and Army, everyone's perceived to be dirty. At least, that's what the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer of Transparency International (TI) has found. With headlines screaming every other day of this scam being unearthed or another, it seems muck all around for people. Worse, no one seems to come out as clean. Only the degree of cleanliness varies. The worst of the lot, needless to say are political parties. On a...

Given the rate at which scams are being uncovered these days, it isn't surprising that India comes across as the ninth most corrupt nation in the world. No, that's not Arundhati Roy's assertion, but that of the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer released on Thursday. In India, 54 per cent of the people have reported paying a bribe to receive attention from at least one of nine different service providers in the past 12 months. The services include education, judiciary, medical services, police...