Opinion
Appeal
The legacy of IPA, founded by Nikhil Chakravartty, the doyen of journalism in India, to keep the flag of independent media flying high, is facing the threat of extinction due to the effect of the Covid pandemic. Only an emergency funding can avert such an eventuality. We appeal to all those who believe in the freedom of expression to contribute to this noble cause.Trump Tariffs Have Profound Impact On Global Oil Trade, OPEC Strategies
By K Raveendran OPEC+ is once again at the centre of a global energy crisis as it grapples with a new challenge posed by President Donald Trump’s tariffs on major crude oil suppliers. The tariffs, which include a 10 percent levy on Canadian oil and 25 percent on US...
RSS Cadres Were In Charge Of BJP’s Booth Management For Delhi Polls On February 5
By Arun Srivastava BJP winning Delhi assembly elections held on Wednesday with massive RSS pracharak’s participation in the poll battle is entwined with the basic issue of RSS’s existence and accomplishing its mission of Hindu Rashtra, more than Narendra Modi using the victory to showcase his supremacy. It also...
H-1B Visa For Indians Will Be The Major Issue For Discussion Between Trump And Modi
By T N Ashok NEW YORK: US planes destined for Punjab’s Amritsar landed on Wednesday noon with 205 undocumented Indians as part of President Donald Trump’s deportation plans as India confirmed their identities without comment and six more planes are due to land in the country shortly. Over 18,000...
Kejriwal Had Anxious Moments In His New Delhi Constituency On D-Day
By Sushil Kutty Did people vote for change in Delhi? The word reverberated the most in the New Delhi assembly constituency, which had the honour of being represented by AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal since before 2015. The former Delhi Chief Minister on the polling day on February 5 had...
Outlay For India’s MSME Sector For 2025-26 Is Still Less Than 2022-23 Amount
By Dr. Gyan Pathak Union Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman labelled MSMEs of India in her budget speech as the second engine in the growth story of India, boasted of significantly helping the sector under PM Narendra Modi led government, and announced several new schemes for them. However, in...
How International Law Sustains Climate Action Following U.S. Withdrawal
By Eklavya Vasudev In a move emblematic of his administration’s climate scepticism, President Trump signed the Executive Order Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements, signalling the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. While the procedural realities delay full disengagement until early 2026, the symbolic impact is immediate,...
Elon Musk’s Onslaught Against Federal Employees Facing Massive Protests
By John Wojcik and Mark Gruenberg WASHINGTON: Workers, unionized with AFGE and the Treasurers’ union, joined by their non-union colleagues, literally put their bodies on the line on Monday to block entrances into government buildings by operatives of Elon Musk who moved quickly to take over government servers in...
Why Modi’s Gamble In 2025-26 Budget On Mega Tax Relief Will Fail?
By Nitya Chakraborty The present euphoria among the BJP-led government ministers after the presentation of the 2025-26 budget in Parliament over the mega relief to the income tax payers of the country might be shared by the estimated one crore people in the country benefited due to the budget...
2025-26 Budget Contains Some Strategic Steps But Ignores Public Sector
By T N Ashok In 2025-26 budget some strategic steps have been taken to stimulate India’s business environment including reforms to remove bottlenecks in key business areas, reducing minimum capital requirement, and simplifying the process of obtaining necessary licenses. But the focus of this eight budget presented by the...
Big Talks On Budgetary Support To Agriculture, But Small Increase In Funds
By Dr. Gyan Pathak Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman talked big during her budget speech emphasizing “Agriculture as the first Engine” for India’s development journey announcing a slew of measures to spur agriculture growth and productivity benefitting the Annadata. However, farmers are not appeased. In contrast, they will be...
The Yogi-Guaranteed ‘X-Factor’ Will Be At Play In Delhi And Milkipur
By Sushil Kutty February 5, when Delhi votes to elect a new assembly, a factor that will have a say, but has been pushed to the back-burner, will be ‘Batenge toh katenge’, just like it had counted in the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections. This, even after Prime Minister...
Union Budget: Raw Deal To Kerala Once Again
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It is the same old story, infuriatingly repetitive year after year and Budget after Budget. Kerala continues to be at the receiving end of the Union Government’s callous neglect in the Budget. Kerala’s list of demands has been completely disregarded. The State’s hopes of securing...
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte Calls For Continuing Ukraine War
By Ben Chacko LONDON: NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte is on the warpath, much to the delight of Ukraine’s state-controlled mass media and politicians. Europe’s biggest-selling daily paper, Bild, reports his comments in the light of the Ukraine war: “I’ll tell you very clearly: we have to prepare for war.”...
Zakia Jafri’s Personal Battles Embodied India’s Secular Aspirations
By Mihir Desai On February 1, 2025, Zakia Jafri passed away at the age of 86, quietly resting in her sister’s home in Ahmedabad – a city that changed her life forever, but where she kept coming back. She was Zakiaappa to me, and I was her lawyer right...
Disenchanted Foreign Investors Make A Record Pre-Budget Stock Sale
By Nantoo Banerjee It would be wrong to underplay the impact of rising foreign disinvestments from the country’s secondary market on the economy and the very stability of Indian Rupee (INR). Both the domestic economy and INR have been constantly under pressure from large deficit trade balances year after...
Union Budget 2025-26 Is Frustrating For India’s Workforce
By Dr. Gyan Pathak At a time when India’s labour market is undergoing an unprecedented crisis, with about 19 per cent of them are in unpaid employment but counted as employed by the government, non-availability of jobs in the job market has been pushing the people towards self-employment which...
BJP Dreaming Of Defeating AAP In Delhi Polls Through ‘Budget Masterstrokë’
By Sushil Kutty Parliament erupted February 3, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s ‘Budget 2025’ forgotten in the ruckus. The session went from ‘derailed’ to ‘stampede.’ Opposition MPs to a man (and ‘woman’) raised slogans against the ‘Modi and Yogi’ governments, holding the so-called ‘double-engine ki Sarkar’ in Uttar Pradesh responsible...
2025-26 Budget Proposals Are Meant To Give A Boost To Modi’s Corporate Friends
By Arun Srivastava Saffron ecosystem is desperate to project Narendra Modi’s 2025-26 budget as a significant effort to conjure the middle class to make a strong comeback in the politics of the country and give an exuberant push to the economy. Regrettably this is not even the half-truth. An...
