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Wednesday, September 3, 2025
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The FinePrint

Karnataka is ignoring Western Ghats UNESCO tag and 6 central notices—to build, build, build

The Western Ghats has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site for over a decade. But for the Karnataka government, it has become a millstone around the neck.

Govt schoolteachers are drowning. Classwork, homework, more work

From organising Swachhta Pakhwada to carrying out Veergatha project and chasing students to open accounts, schoolteachers are spending a lot of time on non-teaching work.

How did Durga’s popularity survive Mughal & colonial rule? Bengali zamindars made it happen

Since Durga could no longer be the premier royal war-goddess in a Sultanate-dominated world, Sanskrit texts from the 15th century stopped asking her for military success.

Haryana lesson for Congress—stop relying on old guard who can no longer win you elections

The question to ask is: ‘How does the Haryana result change the way we look at national politics going forward?’

Read the Kashmir verdict. It’s time to stop treating it like a national security crisis

Election after election has seen Kashmir’s people demonstrate that, like other Indians, they seek a future shaped by democratic rights and norms

Panipat men are becoming Hanuman for 41 days. No salt, no women, only tapasya

Every Dussehra, the Hanuman Swaroop phenomenon sweeps across Panipat, turning ordinary men into symbols of devotion and defiance. It’s a rite of passage.

Nitish Kumar sends officials back to classroom. 1,000-yr-old Kaithi slows Bihar land survey

Bihar’s civil engineers and surveyors are taking govt-mandated Kaithi crash courses to meet the 2025 land survey deadline. ‘Without learning it, the work can’t be done.’

Schools where you enrol just to bunk…and go to coaching class instead. Inside India’s ‘dummy schools’

Despite violating regulations of education boards, dummy schooling has become popular among entrance exam aspirants. Coaching industry stakeholders say schools don't meet students' needs.

Why Modi-Shah have failed to develop mass leaders in states the way Vajpayee-Advani did

BJP had leaders like Modi, Chouhan, Raje, Raman Singh, BSY, and Dhumal who kept the party’s flame burning. Those promoted by Modi-Shah in the last 10 years fail to inspire confidence.

Govt jobs are changing. PSU bank staff live in pressure cooker, 9-5 replaced by 24×7

Government bank employees sell mutual funds, insurance and just never log out. They have steeper targets and ‘performer of the month’ award to chase too.

On Camera

On Arundhati Roy, mother-daughter conflicts, and the burden of being a ‘good mother’

When reading the book, one can see Roy’s mother as a 'fascist government' unto herself, the centre of her own cult. In Arundhati’s words, Mary Roy was ‘mother guru’.

A Rs 33,000 cr ‘banking fraud’: ED’s case against Arvind Dham, Amtek’s web of ‘500 shell companies’

ED has accused Amtek promoter Arvind Dham of controlling web of nearly 500 shell companies operating as a layered structure, with up to 15 levels of indirect ownership, to divert funds.

‘Loyal wingman’ to full ICBM triad & air defence, China’s show of power at Victory Day parade

China flaunted military might & modernisation as it displayed stealth drones, anti-satellite system & cyber warfare contingent during parade to mark victory over Japan in WWII.

For Indian Mercedes, Asim Munir’s dumper truck in mirror is closer than it appears

From Munir’s point of view, a few bumps here and there is par for the course. He isn’t going to drive his dumper truck to its doom. He wants to use it as a weapon.