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
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
An overflowing sewer in New Delhi on July 22, 2020. Photo: Sandeep Saxena

Sewage Testing as a Pandemic Monitoring Tool

Nitya Jacob

A common challenge faced by governments across the world during the COVID-19 pandemic is to identify patients affected by the ...

Read more
Migrant workers from other States, desperate to return to their homes, walk through rail tracks towards a train station in Ahmedabad, India, on May 11, 2020. File Photo: AP

Pandemic Exposes Weaknesses in India’s Disaster Management Response

Sumit Chaturvedi

Disasters are testing times for institutions and individuals, processes and procedures, and policies and their implementation ...

Read more
With no electricity, a boy charges his mobile using solar power to attend his online class in Bormarjong village in Assam on June 11, 2020. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

A Reality Check on India’s Search for Digital Utopia

Preeti Mudliar

The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the persistent digital divide afflicting rural India owing to poor and insufficient internet ...

Read more

Topics