-The Telegraph Below-normal and drought are the new normal. Since 2012 there has only been one normal monsoon. Monsoons follow their own patterns, unpredictable as they may be. In the past, certain periods, spanning a decade or sometimes two, have had higher frequencies of droughts and at the moment, we seem to be stuck in such a cycle. Between 1900 and the year 2000, there was one drought per decade. But...

-The Telegraph Its only usefulness could be to determine how Assam might be recompensed for coping with the magnitude of immigration Boris Johnson is no vaishnavite saint; nor is he a leftist internationalist. According to Donald Trump people see him as the “British Trump” and, judging by the cabinet he has picked as prime minister, with a hard-Right home secretary, and the company he kept during the Brexit referendum which included Nigel...

-The Hindu With the kernel of the Information Act under threat, the independence of the information commission is in peril When we describe India as a democracy what do we really mean? Are we referring merely to a system of popular sovereignty founded in universal adult franchise? Or are we suggesting something more — perhaps an assurance, grounded in the Constitution, of a set of rights, of the rights, among others, to...

-The Indian Express Basheer’s energy shines through in his multi-dimensional academic career, which was marked by controversies and pathbreaking achievements. Inhabiting dualities defined Shamnad Basheer. Nicola Lacey, biographer of the eminent legal philosopher H L A Hart, wrote that Hart was surely an insider to Oxford philosophy, but always saw himself on the margins. Memories of Basheer kindle something similar: Inspiring students, intervening socially, recognised publicly and yet, secluded and distant....

-Livemint.com * An exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming book on the Assam Accord takes a critical look at the NRC crisis * The passage analyses the pros and cons of the debate over a work-permit formula to deal with the situation. One of the foremost thinkers to academically elaborate on the formula (of work permits in Assam) was author–journalist–rights activist Sanjoy Hazarika in Rites of Passage: Border Crossings, Imagined Homelands, India’s East and...