IPA Special
Delhi’s Unbreatheable Air Crisis Returns To The Supreme Court
By T N Ashok Before the Indian Supreme Court, there’s not just another plea on Delhi’s choking air; it’s not adjudicating a new emergency. It is confronting an old failure—one that has returned with brutal predictability, thick smog, and a mounting toll on public health. Each winter, the national...
Why United States Must Strengthen Vital Ally Peshmerga
By Manish Rai The Peshmerga, the armed forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), constitute a highly effective and well-trained military organization that protects not only Kurdistan but also the whole of northern Iraq. The rapid disintegration of the Iraqi military in 2014, after minimal resistance to ISIS, left...
Worldwide Rise In Extreme Inequality Is The Hallmark Of Neoliberalism
By Sanjay Roy Extreme inequality in terms of income, wealth, gender and regions has become the hallmark of neoliberalism. Fewer than 60,000 multi-millionaires who are the top 0.001 per cent wealthiest of the world possess three times the wealth of half of humanity. Their share has grown over the...
Honouring Punjab Boy Sharvan Singh, A Bearer Of True Patriotism
By Jag Mohan Thaken History repeats itself; but a few are fortunate to get the recognition. The spiritual world, especially the Sikh world, is proud of the act of kindness, humility and service to mankind exemplified by Bhai Kanhaiya Ji, who is widely known for his water seva during...
Radio Ceylon Turns 100: One Of Indian Popular Music’s Oldest Medium
By Tirthankar Mitra One of world’s oldest broadcasters, Radio Ceylon, has turned 100. It arrived decades before television when radio was a novelty and Radio Ceylon started officially broadcasting from December 16, 1925. Radio Ceylon may seem an aberration today; after all, Ceylon is Sri Lanka. But the British-era...
The New Nuclear Bill Severely Compromises India’s National Interests
By Dr Arun Mitra The new nuclear bill, titled Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI), passed by Parliament, has received the assent of the President of India, Droupadi Murmu. With this, it has become an Act governing various aspects of nuclear energy in the...
Beyond Funding: What Determines Employment Guarantee Success?
By Dr. Nilanjan Banik One of the contentious issues in the Vikshit Bharat Guarantee for Rojgar and Aleevika Mission (VB-G Ram G) Bill, which was eventually passed in Parliament, concerns allowing states to pause MGNREGA-related work for 60 days of their choice during peak sowing and harvesting seasons. The...
Disrupting Christmas Celebrations Allegedly By RSS Activist Is Ominous
By Dr. Gyan Pathak Disruption of Christmas celebrations 2025 is several states in India, allegedly by the RSS activists and Hindutva forces, has brought in focus the pitfalls of fanning the majority Hindu communal passions against non-Hindu religious groups, more so because the inter-religious tensions are rising sharply on...
India’s Space Agency Emerges As Major Force In Global Launch Market
By T N Ashok A rocket lifted off at dawn from the coastal launch complex of Sriharikota, carrying a 6.1-ton American communications satellite into the December sky. Within minutes, the payload was safely deployed in orbit, another mission completed with the metronomic precision that has become India’s calling card...
Trade Unions Toughen Stance, Call For General Strike On Feb 12
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The major trade unions in the country except the BMS have decided to toughen their stance against the implementation of the four new labour codes, enactment of a new law to replace the MGNREGA, amendments to the Insurance Act and changes in the nuclear energy...
2025, The Year That Was; 2026, The Year That Will Be
By Nilotpal Basu Reviewing the year gone by is important, as the past gives us the wherewithal to understand the present and step into the future with all our energy and purpose, particularly in an environment which is engulfed by a mainstream media which is increasingly hegemonised by corporate...
In Defence Of Our Anti-Colonial Socialist-Communist Heritage
By Krishna Jha The national freedom movement, both through its successes and failures, greatly deepened the national consciousness. This consciousness went through the stages of evolving new strategies and methods of struggles, creation of new traditions of resistance, of secularism, of democracy and egalitarianism. Among its great successes and...
Trump Focuses On Nigeria, The New Epicentre Of ISIS Terrorism
By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers On Christmas night, American warplanes struck northwestern Nigeria. The targets: suspected ISIS positions in Sokoto State. The location surprised seasoned observers. Nigeria is neither Syria or Iraq. Yet for Donald Trump, that was precisely the point. The operation signals a fundamental shift. America’s war on...
Murmurs Of ‘Rahul Hatao, Priyanka Laao’ Pinch Congress
By Rahil Nora Chopra After poll routs in Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and poor performance in the assembly elections of Bihar, the voices for Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have grown stronger. The rumbling heard within the party is “Rahul hatao, Priyanka laao”, publicly calling for a meaty central role for Priyanka....
Sreenivasan, The Keeper Of Malayali Conscience On Screen Passes Away
By Tirthankar Mitra The common factor between the Malayali films Sandesam (1991) and Nadodikkattu (1987) is no more. Sreenivasan, who was part and parcel of both the films, has passed away. It did not matter to the multifaceted man that the two films were on divergent topics. Sreenivasan enacted...
2026 Would Be A Year Of Lower Oil Prices And Crude Oversupply
By K Raveendran As 2026 approaches, the global oil market is heading into a year that could decisively reshape price dynamics, fiscal planning in producing states, and energy security calculations for importing economies. The defining feature of the coming year is not demand destruction or geopolitical shock, but the...
BlueBird Block-2 Launch: India’s Heavy-Lift Moment Is Beyond Space
By R. Suryamurthy By any technical measure, India’s successful launch of the BlueBird Block-2 satellite should have been routine. Rockets lift satellites into orbit every week now. SpaceX alone has normalised spaceflight to the point of near banality. And yet, the LVM3-M6 mission — which placed a 6,100-kg U.S.-built...
Bodo Movement Groups Restive, Mass Mobilisation Likely Soon
By Rabindra Nath Sinha KOLKATA: Whether the Bodo Movement Groups (BMGs) will press ahead with the in-principle decision to organize a mass gathering of two lakh people at Kokrajhar in the near future in support of their five-year-old demand for more powers and more elected representatives — will hinge...
