In September, Chennai Metro carried over a crore of passengers for the third straight month. In the same city, Perambur Barracks Road caved in twice in weeks, opening a 20-foot crater. One city, two infrastructures — and the gap between them is where a government's priorities are judged.
· 2 min read
September's GST data is unambiguous: India collected 14.7 per cent more, Tamil Nadu collected 5 per cent less. A government that claims administrative competence cannot shrug off a shrinking tax kitty in a booming economy.
· 2 min read
A viral smartphone video is not a substitute for governance. As the Tamil Nadu government leans on social-media optics, its record on jobs, fiscal health and service delivery deserves hard scrutiny.
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The court has closed the ₹4-crore fraud plea against TVK's C. Vijayabaskar. The legal fact must be respected — but the political question of how corruption cases against the powerful are handled will not close with the file.
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The TVK government's attempt to place its law-and-order department beyond the reach of the RTI Act — revoked within days under pressure — reveals a ruling instinct hostile to scrutiny. Periyar taught us to question everything; a Dravidian government should know the question is not an insult, it is the citizen's right.
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Chennai's resumed 40-day segregation campaign shows households will sort their waste when given the tools — compliance jumped from 35% to 64%. But bins do not empty themselves. The campaign's real test is whether it honours the sanitation workers who carry its weight.
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A single national entrance test rewards coaching-class privilege, not talent. It shuts out rural, Tamil-medium and first-generation learners while paper leaks rot its credibility. Tamil Nadu's fight against NEET — from Assembly resolutions to the anti-NEET signature campaign — is social justice in Periyar's lineage.
· 4 min read
The High Court has done what successive governments promised in 1978 and never finished. The State's status report must be honest, public and followed by a deadline.
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The Madurantakam and Dharapuram byelections were caused by two MLAs who resigned and changed parties a month after being elected. The Tenth Schedule cannot stop this. Parliament should.
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A new Secretariat at Pattinapakkam and seven Chennai boats held in Andhra Pradesh are two sides of one question: does the State see its fishers as citizens or as occupants of valuable sand?
· 2 min read
The extension of the breakfast scheme to Class 8 is the newest link in a chain that began in Madras in 1922. Its strength is that no government has broken it. The next step is to measure what children actually eat and learn.
· 2 min read
