Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

Banking on Authority: A Traffic Rule Too Far

Sometimes, governance sounds less like policy and more like a late-night WhatsApp forward. Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s recent warning that traffic challan penalties may be “automatically deducted” from violators’ bank accounts belongs firmly in that category—dramatic, attention-grabbing, and deeply disconnected from how India actually functions. At first glance, the statement seems well-intentioned. Traffic…

Read More

US pauses visa processing for individuals from 75 countries

New York/Washington: The Trump administration on Wednesday announced pausing immigrant visa processing for individuals from 75 countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Russia, as part of increasing crackdown on foreigners likely to rely on public benefits in the US. “The State Department will pause immigrant visa processing from 75 countries whose migrants take welfare from…

Read More
Columnist-M.S.Shanker

Trump vs Sovereignty

Donald Trump’s politics have never been subtle. It is coercive, transactional, and unapologetically destabilising. When he threatens Iran today with military action, sanctions, and economic strangulation under the familiar pretext of “regime behaviour,” the world would be naïve to see it as an isolated episode. Iran is merely the current theatre. The method—pressure, humiliation, internal…

Read More
Alekya-Pratap news reporter image

Women’s welfare takes center stage as never before in India

For decades after Independence, India spoke eloquently about women’s empowerment but acted timidly. Gender equality was celebrated in speeches, referenced in policy documents, and showcased on paper—but rarely backed with sustained budgets, institutional urgency, or political competition. That inertia decisively broke after 2014. Especially, with the ban on Triple Talaq, which indeed remove gender inequality,…

Read More