IPA Special
Gig Workers Concluded 2025 With All-India Strike, Will Have To Do More In 2026
By Dr. Gyan Pathak Gig workers of India have concluded the year 2025 with an all-India strike action on the last day, December 31, 2025, demanding fair wages and working conditions, which have undergone marked deterioration in the last three months. It happened despite the Union government’s repeated claim...
Bangladesh After The Begums: From Hasina’s Fall To Zia’s Demise
By T N Ashok By the end of 2025, Bangladesh finds itself without the two women figures who defined it. With the death of Khaleda Zia at 80 and the exile of Sheikh Hasina after her dramatic fall from power, Bangladesh has entered a political interregnum unlike any it...
Modi–Shah Formula Meets Its Hardest Test Outside Hindi Heartland
By R. Suryamurthy For more than a decade, Indian elections have revolved around a deceptively simple formula: Narendra Modi supplies the mass spectacle, Amit Shah perfects the electoral arithmetic. One dominates the narrative, the other controls the machine. Together, they have transformed the Bharatiya Janata Party into the most...
Drifting Quicksands Of Bengal Politics: Can Mamata Hold Fort?
By Anjan Roy West Bengal is witnessing hectic political manoeuvring by leading political figures, even though the assembly elections are a clear six months away at least. One of these, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who was once a stalwart of the Congress, not only in the state but nationally, is...
Provincialisation Of ‘Venture Schools/Colleges’ In Assam’s BTR Areas
By Rabindra Nath Sinha KOLKATA: The third and subsisting tripartite Bodo Peace Accord signed on January 27, 2020 provides under clause 6.3 for “provincialisation” of schools and colleges in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), as also Bodo-medium schools outside BTR. [The accord rechristened what was then known as Bodoland...
Trump 2.0: The Year America Shook Up The Old-World Order
By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers NEW YORK: When Donald J. Trump placed his hand on the Bible on January 20, 2025, it was not merely the inauguration of a second-term president. It was a hostile takeover of the American state by a man who believed—more than ever—that power existed to...
Indian Diplomacy In 2025: Of National Interests And Global Ambitions
By Asad Mirza India’s foreign policy in 2025 continued to be anchored in the dual ethos of “Bharat First” and “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,” balancing national interest with global cooperation. Strategic autonomy, non-alignment, and economic diplomacy remained central pillars of its international engagement. India maintained a multi-aligned posture, strengthening ties across...
Unnao Case: Atrocious Crime Against Humanity, So, Whither Is Justice?
By Nilotpal Basu The sensational developments over the last week brought the question of crimes against women to the forefront with a dramatic effect. The exceptional case of the Unnao rape victim, a mere 15-year-old who was lured by Kuldeep Singh Sengar, the local MLA of Unnao, has burst...
Sensation Building Up Around Country’s Biggest Ever Arbitration Award
By K Raveendran As Indian corporates step into the new year buoyed by stronger growth momentum and easing inflationary pressures, a sense of anticipation is spreading across boardrooms and policy circles alike over a dispute that dwarfs most corporate battles seen in the country’s history. At the heart of...
UDF On Upswing, But Groupism Takes Shine Off Its Win In Local Bodies Poll
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the sun sets on 2025, a close look at the prospects of the principal political fronts in Kerala is in order. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) is certainly down, but not out. Its ‘unexpected’ defeat is not an unmitigated disaster its political rivals are...
Disturbing Decline Of Diplomacy Across South Asia Bodes Ill For All
By Ashis Biswas Within the South Asian context, a noticeable coarsening of diplomatic discourse among four countries has occurred, following the violent regime change in Bangladesh, a brief encounter involving India and Pakistan and sporadic skirmishes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. A new political alignment, whose contours will be clearer...
Overconfidence, Identity Politics Caused LDF Defeat: CPI(M) State Chief
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has attributed its ‘unexpected’ poor performance in the local bodies elections in Kerala to overconfidence and the big surge in religion-caste identity politics played by the Congress, the BJP and Islamist forces. Analysing the reasons for the defeat, CPI(M)...
Haryana Minister Anil Vij Exposes Rs. 1,500-Crore Work Slip Scam
By Jag Mohan Thaken By exposing the Rs.1,500-Crore “Work Slip Scam” in his own department and recommending for a high-level probe to the Chief Minister, Haryana Labour Minister Anil Vij has landed the CM Nayab Singh Saini in hot waters, who always claims to preside on a corruption-free Haryana....
Brigitte Bardot, The Face That Changed Desire—And Then Turned Away
By T N Ashok Brigitte Bardot, who died at 91, was not merely a movie star. She was an event. Before Madonna, before Jane Birkin, before the age of celebrity-as-performance, Bardot arrived in the 1950s as something both unsettling and liberating: a woman who seemed indifferent to approval. Her...
No Illusions Of Fairness From Recently-Held Myanmar Elections
By Tirthankar Mitra December 28 has come and gone marking the end of the first phase of the three-phase elections in Myanmar, but democracy seems to be elusive. The elections are widely being viewed at home and abroad as a “sham”. Myanmar is in need of peace, democracy and...
Blockade, Aggression, And Jus Cogens: US Sanctions On Venezuelan Oil
By Atul Alexander On December 16, the United States (US) announced measures to block oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. The Trump administration alleges that Nicolás Maduro’s regime is engaged in drug trafficking and human trafficking. The U.S has expanded its naval presence in the region, ostensibly to interrupt...
Rupee Decline May Not Be Bad For Economy Now
By Nantoo Banerjee It does not make sense for India to deplete its hard-earned foreign currency reserves to temporarily protect the Rupee’s exchange value. In fact, Indian Rupee’s downturn vis-à-vis other major currencies has not adversely impacted the country’s impressive economic growth, at least for the present. On the...
Time Has Come To Call Modi Government’s Bluff On Environmental Hypocrisy
By Dr. Gyan Pathak How many definitions were changed under various legislations by the Union Government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014 and for whose benefit? Aravalli Hills case has once again prompted us to think, because definitions were changed to profit the mining lobbies at...
