Opinion

By Peter Brian Wang An opportunity has arisen. For small and middle powers, increasingly uncertain and aggressive geosecurity has provided a chance to influence global developments. For the Pacific Islands, their time in the sun may have just begun, and they could look to other regions of the world for clues on how to play […]

By Arun Sinha Old India has been metamorphosing into a New India (Naya Bharat) under the “visionary and dynamic leadership” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014, so we are told. And Naya Bharat is bringing prosperity to all. Because the spirit that drives the train of New India is Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas. Nobody is going to […]

By Pramod K Nayar The recent news about 46 migrants found dead inside a tractor trailer in San Antonio, Texas, shocked the Americans. Most of the migrants had suffocated to death. All of them were Mexicans, part of the recent surge in migrant crossing from Mexico into the USA. Aylan Kurdi is not so old […]

By Dr K Srinivasa Rao Despite the ongoing twin crisis – lingering Covid-19 and war between Russia and Ukraine, banks have gained strength in the last couple of years. The RBI’s Financial Stability Report-June 2022 reflects improved asset quality and capital adequacy ratio (CAR). The asset quality of banks continued to improve steadily with the […]

By B Yerram Raju I saw the film RRR and wondered how I should title this article on Asset Quality Review (AQR) undertaken by Raghuram Rajan Reforms (RRR) in the banking sector during his regime as Governor. The Economic Survey 2020-21 while criticising the AQR’s inability to prevent the evergreening of loans in the name […]

By Quentin Read The food on our plates has a footprint. Every bite of food we consume represents the environmental impact of all the resources used to produce that food. Land is foremost among those resources. As food is transported from farm to fork, the land used to grow the food is ‘virtually transported’ along […]

By Henryk Szadziewski From small diplomatic measures to a doubling of trade, China’s interests in Pacific Island nations have expanded in the past decade. Now, in a world of growing geopolitical instability and tension over Taiwan, China is in the position of being an enduring partner to the region. China’s former ambassador to the US […]

By Stefan Wolff Against a backdrop of unprecedented turmoil – the first major war in Europe in three decades, the highest inflation rates in decades and a rapidly worsening global food crisis – western leaders have met for two major summits. The G7 met in Germany and Nato leaders gathered in Madrid. The outcomes of […]

By Sanjay Chaturvedi In the world of migration law no one has successfully defined what a ‘climate refugee’ is. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees doesn’t endorse the term. Worse, the term ‘refugee’, as subscribed to by the 1951 Convention with its focus on fear of persecution, is unlikely to be of any value […]

By Huw Thomas In what has been called the “biggest moment for workers’ rights in a quarter of a century”, the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted a safe and healthy work environment as one of its five fundamental principles and rights at work for all at its June 2022 international conference. This is the first […]

By Dhananjay Tripathi In 2012, the European union (EU) was awarded the Nobel peace prize to acknowledge its contribution “to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”. Indeed, regionalism played a vital role in the transformation of Europe after the end of World War (WW)-II. The European integration process brought […]

By Shubhranshu Choudhary When violence suddenly escalated in Chhattisgarh due to a government-supported anti-Maoist programme called Salwa Judum in 2005, according to some government figures, around 55,000 tribals had escaped to then Andhra Pradesh leaving their homes behind. Economic migration of Gutti Koyas (known as Muria in Chhattisgarh) to the southern part of Dandakaranya forest […]

By Arun Sinha Thanks to Hindu revivalists, ‘historical wrong’ is never out of the news. We are at the Gyanvapi mosque today but we will surely go to other mosques sooner or later. For, so deeply traumatised is the Hindu heart by the demolition of temples by the Muslim rulers in medieval India — we […]

By Jaya B Phaniharam The National Education Policy (NEP) is widely discussed in view of its recommendations and guidelines. There is apprehension as well as acceptance. Academic institutions are the primary stakeholders constituting college management in the role of policymaking, academic staff in knowledge transfer, training and placement staff in opportunity scouting and coordination staff […]

Care and companionship can now be assigned to Social Robots

By G Nagaraj and T Damodaram India is in a paradoxical situation with respect to edible and vegetable oils. It is one of the largest producers and also one of the largest importers. Naturally, it has become a major consumer of edible oils in the world. The country’s edible oils import bill was around Rs […]

By Markus Wagner, Weihuan Zhou After decades of conflict that has neutered its work, the World Trade Organization looks to be back in business. Its highest decision-making body – a conference of ministers from the organisation’s 164 member nations – has just met for the first time since 2017. None of what the ministerial conference […]

Statelessness is a human problem with no easy end in sight. Power rests with the nations that make policy dictating whether a refugee has a nation they can call home

By Dr Ranjith Reddy ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’ reverberated through the country in yesteryears and since then successive governments have been formulating policies and programmes around this slogan. India is an agrarian country and the government of the day has the constitutional mandate to protect and preserve the boundaries of the nation. Whichever government tried […]

By Lt Gen P R Shankar (retd)  The ‘Agnipath’ is going through a severe ‘Agni Pariksha’. The acid test of any military transformation of such nature must be the effect on the operational ability of our cutting-edge fighting units. If the transformation enables and empowers the frontline units and enhances the security of the nation, […]

By Pendyala Mangala Devi In States ruled by opposition parties, the Governors there often say the Constitution has given them powers to serve the public directly, and no one can stop them from doing so. Constitutional experts view this statement as unconstitutional. Constituent Assembly The Constituent Assembly discussed in detail the role and functions of […]

By B Sambamurthy India has been striving hard to accelerate the growth of the manufacturing sector. There has been no surfeit of initiatives by governments over the last two decades. But the results are suboptimal. The share of manufacturing, which was about 15% of the GDP during 2000, crawled over the next two decades to […]

By M Krishnan, Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan Agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture startups are no more a preserve of entrepreneurs with an academic background in these core disciplines. They are well populated by cross-discipline incubates that include computer engineers and business graduates with skills in disruptive technologies. These positive blips were seen while evaluating startup project proposals […]

By B Yerram Raju The history of economics of nations reminds us that every nation on its growth trajectory found corruption, frauds, scams and unethical practices. Those that crossed these barriers through smart surveillance grew fast and big. However, in democracies like India, where people did not find the money for two-and-a-half centuries of British […]