In Focus by The Hindu

There has been a lot of excitement around the India-U.K. trade deal — PM Narendra Modi termed the deal a "historic milestone" while announcing that both countries "successfully concluded an ambitious and mutually beneficial Free Trade Agreement", and U.K. PM Keir Starmer recently called it a fantastic deal. India enjoys a trade surplus with the U.K., the deal could help India maintain its competit...

Trade-related tensions between India and Bangladesh have been rising. In a seemingly retaliatory move, India has restricted the import of certain goods from Bangladesh to just two sea ports – Kolkata and Nhava Sheva. It has blocked 11 traditional land ports in the North East. This move has caused concern among both Bangladeshi and Indian traders as goods-laden trucks have been stuck at the various...

After a nearly four-year delay, the Central government finally released a whole lot of reports about India’s births, deaths and health indicators for the year 2021. Two of these key reports, released by the Registrar General of India, were the number of deaths registered, and the medical certification of the causes of deaths. What did these reports find? In 2021, the year of the brutal and devasta...

How do monsoons really work? What makes them plentiful some years, but vanish completely in others, causing drought-like conditions? Climate scientists have been seeking answers to these questions for a long time. Now a research paper has come up with an intriguing explanatory concept: atmospheric memory. The study was conducted by two scientists -- Anja Katzenberger & Anders Levermann -- from the...

On May 7, India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ in response to the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 in which 26 civilians were killed. Over three days, India and Pakistan launched missiles and drones at each other. There was also an extended aerial warfare involving fighter jets of both the countries. And on May 10, around midday, a ceasefire was announced – not by India or Pakistan, but by Preside...

The petitions challenging the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, are set for hearing on May 15. They will be heard by a Bench led by the Chief Justice designate B.R. Gavai.  Earlier, a three-judge Bench led by outgoing Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna had refused to put an interim stay on the amendments. But it did receive two assurances from the Union government: one, that no Waqf, including Waqf-by-user, sh...

When it comes to food, most Indians cannot imagine a day without rice. Lunch is rice, and rice is lunch – and rice is also sometimes breakfast or dinner or just part of a number of other food items we consume. But how healthy is the rice we are eating? Scientists have known for a while now that a lot of rice contains some amount of arsenic. A new study that was published in The Lancet Planetary He...

The Union cabinet has announced that the next population Census will also include questions on caste. This is a sharp departure from the ruling BJP’s long-standing opposition to a caste census. How do we understand this U-turn? How would this caste census differ from the last one, conducted in 1931? Given the massive scale and logistics involved, what are the challenges involved, and how do we ens...

The world of science was rocked early last month when U.S. company Colossal Biosciences announced that it had resurrected the dire wolf—a species that went extinct more than 10,000 years ago. Three pups, named Remus, Romulus, and Khaleesi are now living on a 2,000-acre enclosure in a secret location. Videos of the wolf pups howling went viral across the internet, as did photographs of their snowy...

According to Section 53 (2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, if there is only candidate contesting an election, then she can be declared elected unopposed. Now a legal think tank, the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of this provision.  It cites the 2013 order of the Supreme Court which held that the right to ca...

In a controversy that seems to have divided the art world in India, Mumbai-based poet-activist Aamir Aziz has accused well known artist Anita Dube of using his poem without his consent, and profiting from it without giving him credit or compensation. The poem in question is ‘Sab Yaad Rakha Jayega’, which became an anthem of the anti-CAA protests and later a global phenomenon after English rock mus...

Recently, a debate about appointing judges has gained momentum in light of cash allegedly being found in the house of a Delhi High Court judge. What began as a discussion about transparency in judicial appointments has widened into a broader conversation about the functioning of India’s justice system, which is already strained by millions of pending cases.  But concerns run deeper than just court...

For the first time since 2018, the United States and Iran are holding high level negotiations. What Iran wants is clear: an end to US sanctions, and resumption of economic engagement. But the US has been speaking in different voices, ranging from a maximalist position of complete dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program, to a more moderate goal of capping the weaponistion of it. President Dona...

Even as India grapples with its estimated 101 million cases of Type 2 diabetes, a new type of diabetes has recently hit the headlines – Type 5. At the International Diabetes Federation’s meeting held recently, an announcement was made: a working group is to be formed to develop criteria and guidelines for Type 5 diabetes. Estimates indicate that this form of diabetes affects 25 million people acro...

The Income Tax Bill, 2025 was introduced in the Lok Sabha recently. It seeks to modernise and simplify the Income Tax Act, 1961.  While the Bill is indeed shorter in length than the original Act it seeks to replace, there is one major concern: privacy experts believe it institutes a regime of tax surveillance, in complete violation of the Supreme Court judgement in the landmark Justice Puttasamy c...

Every day, millions of posts are made online — tweets, videos, memes, reels. Some content is violent, misleading, or even dangerous.  This is where content moderation comes in. However, deciding what stays up and what comes down isn't as simple as it sounds.   In fact, X has sued the Union government in the Karnataka High Court for the SAHYOG portal, which it says is a “censorship portal” that all...

Customers of private health insurance policies in India have noticed a worrying trend – their premium costs are shooting up, and, going by the many stories on social media, rejection of claims is also on the rise. Add to this the 18% GST that is charged on premiums, and it is no wonder that many say they are choosing to not renew their policies altogether. Healthcare remains one of those most expe...

A new report by the NGO Common Cause and Lokniti- Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) has surveyed the attitudes towards torture by policemen across India. ‘The Status of Policing in India Report 2025: Police Torture and (Un) Accountability’ has, for the first time, produced empirical data on the justifications for torture that permeates the Indian police. Uniquely, this report app...

The internet has been flooded with AI-generated images in the style of Studio Ghibli, the animation studio founded by the famous Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. What made Studio Ghibli’s work so special was not only its distinctive style but also the fact that the images were all hand-drawn. The contrast between the high skill and hard labour of the original Studio Ghibli images and the Ghibli-s...

On April 2, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new set of tariffs against countries that, according to him, charged high tariffs and imposed barriers that made products made in the USA more expensive. These tariffs are essential to Trump’s plan to reduce trade deficits and increase domestic manufacturing. The “baseline” tariff of 10% on imports from all countries came into effect on Apr...

The Right to Information Act was a historic piece of legislation that gave ordinary citizens a legally enforceable means to seek information about the government’s functioning – a small step towards accountability. But over the years, governments have progressively diluted the provisions of this law. The latest blow to the RTI is in the form of Section 44 (3) of the Digital Personal Data Protectio...

On March 18, 2025, the Election Commission of India announced that its officials will hold talks with UIDAI experts for linking the Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) with Aadhaar.  This linking is supposed to be voluntary, but there is some confusion as to whether the voter will really have any choice in the matter.  There are also concerns that linking EPIC with Aadhaar could lead to voter pr...

Cancers are rising and rising fast in India. The Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Cancer Registry Programme estimated a 12% increase between 2020 and 2025. This year, cancer numbers were estimated to hit 15.7 lakh. A worrying trend in this rise, is the spike in cancer cases among young persons. We know of and we are battling risk factors such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption and ob...

India is up in arms again, over the words of a stand-up comedian known for political jokes. Kunal Kamra’s remarks on Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde were not liked by the latter’s supporters, who responded with violence – vandalising the venue where Kamra had performed, with the police not intervening to protect private property. Kamra has been inundated with threat calls. The Maha...

The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) and 22 players have filed a class action lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies in a US court. The case has been filed against the ATP, the WTA, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA). The lawsuit alleges that professional tennis players are being exploited and abused by the unfair busi...