The Budget 2025-26 announcements suggest a potential bonanza for scientific research and development. The Finance Minister outlined ₹20,000 crore budgetary support for developing small modular reactors, with the goal of readying five such reactors by 2033. Another major initiative is the Research, Development, and Innovation fund, included in the Department of Science and Technology (DST)’s … Read more
Venue for an upcoming AI Action Summit, in Paris. | Photo Credit: AP In early January, India accepted France’s invitation to co-chair the AI Action Summit on February 10 and 11 in Paris. This summit will be the third of its kind, following meetings focussed on AI safety in the U.K. (2023) and South Korea … Read more
The present period is proving to be an unpredictable one for most parts of the world. Violence is raging across parts of Europe and in West Asia, while several other regions are facing internecine conflicts to varying degrees. At the risk of repetition, it can be said that the world order after 1945 has broken … Read more
The outcome of the Delhi Assembly elections is less about the expansion of the BJP and more about the dramatic collapse of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The BJP has returned to power after over 26 years, while the AAP, a political force that rose spectacularly in 2013, has been swept away. However, this shift … Read more
The Delhi result Given the nature of the anti-incumbency wave, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Delhi win was on the lines predicted. But the defeats of Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia are inexplicable. The result need not resonate across the country but it confirms that the Congress party has lost whatever sheen it had in the … Read more
Junior doctors marched towards the Raj Bhavan to demand justice in the rape-murder case of a trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. | Photo Credit: DEBASISH BHADURI On February 7, the Calcutta High Court rejected the West Bengal government’s appeal seeking the death penalty for the man convicted for … Read more
‘Global South countries are disillusioned with present economic paradigms, burdened with debt and conditionalities’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto In his address in January 2025, in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, while addressing the 18th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention, the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, said, ‘Today’s India not only firmly asserts its own point but also strongly amplifies … Read more
In the latest chapter of the long-standing fisheries dispute in the Palk Bay region, the Sri Lankan Navy arrested 14 fishermen from Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district on February 8 for alleged poaching in waters north of Mannar. Two trawlers were also impounded. On January 27, the Navy fired at an Indian boat near Delft Island, … Read more
‘Before the Gaza war, America’s regional diplomacy was focused on Riyadh-Tel Aviv reconciliation’ | Photo Credit: AFP Donald Trump, a consummate dealmaker, often relies on the “expanding the canvas” strategy to resolve an intractable stalemate. Nevertheless, he made his most audacious ever deal-bid on February 4, 2025: with typical nonchalance, he wanted the Gaza Strip … Read more
In a long overdue decision, N. Biren Singh resigned as Chief Minister of Manipur on Sunday (February 9, 2025. It was reportedly under duress due to growing dissidence within the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government even as the Opposition Congress planned a no-confidence motion in the Assembly. The Supreme Court of India had … Read more