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Bengali Basti area of Vasant Kunj in Delhi. | Photo Credit: Ashna Butani In the winter of 2024, when Delhi was receiving ‘cold wave’ alerts, my phone would beep multiple times a day to alert me about the detainment of “illegal” Bangladeshi immigrants. The crackdown on the community began in Delhi after Lieutenant Governor Vinai … Read more
The 25% tariff “plus penalty” on imports of Indian goods in the United States, announced by President Donald Trump, should have come as no surprise to India. Mr. Trump has, for a while now, been voicing his displeasure at India’s dealings with Russia, with regard to energy dealings and military equipment. He has also been … Read more
Trump’s tariff tirade The U.S. President’s “25% tariffs from Friday plus a penalty” may not have been unexpected as Mr. Trump has given many hints about his disapproval of India’s dealings with Russia. However, his comment that India and Russia can take their “dead economies down together” is shocking and reflects an unexplained contempt for … Read more
The GSLV-F16 mission lifted off from Sriharikota on July 30, placing the NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite into a sun synchronous orbit. The ascent capped a decade-long bilateral effort and opened a new phase in global earth observation cooperation. NISAR is a 2.8-tonne observatory that combines a NASA-built L-band radar with an ISRO-made … Read more
Last December, China unveiled images of its prototype sixth-generation fighter jets, sending ripples across global defence circles. Weeks later, its home-grown DeepSeek AI matched OpenAI’s GPT-4 on international benchmarks. These milestones are not isolated achievements. They represent the momentum of a country that has been investing deeply and consistently in scientific talent and ecosystems. Among … Read more
On the night of July 6, at Tetgama village in Purnia district of Bihar, five members of a family, three of them women, were mercilessly beaten and burnt alive. The alleged reason: witchcraft. In today’s India, branding a woman as a witch may seem like a throwback to a bygone era. However, news from the … Read more
Legal services institutions, established under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, are tasked with the mandate of providing free legal aid to nearly 80% of India’s population. However, the actual reach remains modest. Between April 2023 and March 2024, just 15.50 lakh people received legal aid services — far below the scale envisioned. This marked … Read more
As the Central government prepares for the next delimitation exercise, which will redraw constituency boundaries based on the first Census after 2026, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were waiting for their Assembly constituencies to be increased, as promised in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. However, a recent Supreme Court judgment has dampened their hopes. According … Read more
Imagine a crime scene, where two detectives arrive. The first person is Sherlock Holmes, who is calm, meticulous and relentlessly logical. He sees what others overlook, asks things that others miss, and lets logic and evidence guide every step. He knows that the truth cannot be extracted by force and that it must be uncovered … Read more
The arrest of two Catholic nuns by the Chhattisgarh police on charges of human trafficking and forced conversion is another instance of growing religion-related harassment. Keralite Sisters Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, from the order of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate, were escorting three tribal girls to an Agra convent for jobs when they … Read more