The Arena
A farmer returns homewards from his farm in a village in Haryana on March 5, 2021. The ongoing farmer protests at the Ghazipur border outside Delhi entered the 100th day on March 6. Contentious new agricultural reform laws have led tens of thousands of farmers to block key highways leading to the capital. Multiple rounds of talks have failed to produce any breakthrough on the farmers' key demand to revoke the legislation. Photo: AP

Food Security and Markets: Understanding the Protests over India’s Changing Social Contract with Farmers

Sukhpal Singh

For more than 100 days now India’s farmers have protested at the Shinghu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders outside the national capital, New Delhi. Earlier, Punjab’s farmers protested within their State for three months before moving to Delhi borders, against a set of laws that would change the nature of the relationship between the state and the ...

Read more
interview
Arena Articles
Residents of Mumbai, always known to be engaged in a wide range of activities, spend time with their families on March 31, 2020, during the nation-wide lock down imposed by the Union Government to contain the spread of COVID-19. File photo: Prashant Nakwe/The Hindu

COVID-19: Urban Middle Class Survey Highlights Need for People’s Agency in Policy Making

Ritu Priya , Amitabha Sarkar , Leena Abraham , Prashant Kesharvani and Unnikrishnan P.M.

Calamities throw a critical spotlight on state policies. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to mutate, governments of the world, ...

Read more
The statue of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in Visakhapatnam. File photo: K.R. Deepak/The Hindu

On Rights and Duties – Two Essays

S. Subramanian and Kalpana Kannabiran

Views of leaders occupy prominent positions in the popular narrative in any society: they set a tone for political and social ...

Read more
State Road Transport buses at a government depot in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu. File photo: The Hindu

Transport as a Right and the Need to Re-Orient India's SRTUs

S. Raja Sethu Durai

India's road network carries close to 90 per cent of the country's passenger traffic and about 60 per cent of its freight. This ...

Read more
Fishermen in Kakinada are overawed at the large ocean liner unloading coal at the Kakinada Port. The draft Indian Ports Bill, 2021, aims to centralise the administration of India's 212 Non-Major Ports, most of which are fisheries harbours. File photo: The Hindu BusinessLine

A Draft Bill that Cuts Maritime States Adrift

K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty

In most developed countries, ports are managed by municipal or provincial governments, with the federal government overseeing only ...

Read more
India's political discourse, which was shaped by Mahatma Gandhi's unifying call for independence, has gone through various phases in the seven decades since freedom, each reflecting the political sentiments that have been at play. Photo: The Hindu Archives.

Sense and Sensibilities in India’s Political Discourse

G. N. Devy

India's political discourse, which reached a national characteristic during the freedom struggle, has travelled through several ...

Read more
The dialysis unit at South Central Railway's Central Hospital in Lallaguda. Photo: Special Arrangement / The Hindu.

Consumer Protection Act 2019 and Health Care Services

S. Rajendran

The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (CPA), which came into effect on July 24, 2020, is expected to go a long way in serving the ...

Read more

Topics