In Focus by The Hindu

The Union environment ministry has notified draft rules for implementation of a Green Credit Programme (GCP). The programme aims to create a market-based mechanism for incentivising “voluntary environmental actions” by individuals, urban local bodies, communities and the private sector. The draft is now in the public domain for suggestions and objections, for a period of 60 days, after which it wi...

For the first time in the 48-year history of ODI world cups, the West Indies will be missing from the tournament. The champions of the first two editions, in 1975 and 1979, and the 1983 runner-ups, have failed to qualify for the 13th edition of the World Cup set to take place in India later this year. In the World Cup qualifiers, they lost to Scotland in the Super Six stage of the tournament, whic...

July 1 this year marked the 6th year since the Goods and Services Tax was implemented. The average monthly collection in the first year was sub-₹1 lakh crore. Now, the government expects ₹1.5 lakh crore to be the norm, with its eye ₹2 lakh crore for the near future. At the start, there were several changes that naysayers felt made compliance difficult. Others said these were necessary prerequisite...

The recent bus accident on the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Expressway that left 25 people dead after the bus hit an iron pole and caught fire, has once again thrown the spotlight on road accidents in India. Our country has one of the highest numbers of road crash deaths and injuries in the world. In 2021, India saw over 4 lakh road accidents that killed over 1.5 lakh people. What is tragic, is that th...

Can Novak Djokovic win a record 24th Grand Slam title? This question is one of the central themes of the 2023 Wimbledon championship. If the Serb manages to do it, not only will be equal Margaret Court’s record of 24 grand slams – the highest across both genders – he will also equal Roger Federer’s men’s record of eight Wimbledon titles. And with Nadal out of the picture for the rest of the year,...

In this podcast, we look at the state of play three years after India put in place sweeping curbs on inflows of Chinese investments into India. Official data shows investments from China are slowly returning through new avenues and ventures, with New Delhi welcoming investments in some sectors such as manufacturing but remaining wary about others where data and security concerns are involved. How...

The intellectual class of West Bengal, euphemistically termed the Bhadralok, has long held a pivotal role in shaping culture, politics and policy in the State. From producing timeless cinema to dominating political power to setting policies on welfare, reforms and state interventions, this segment of Bengali society performed an outsized role. But all indications are that its influence is fading q...

India has faced record-breaking temperatures this summer. The punishing heatwave across large parts of our country has killed dozens of people already, and while exact numbers remain controversial, the fact remains that heatwaves are becoming far more frequent, lasting for longer, and, as a consequence affecting more people. A large section of our population works out of doors for most of the year...

On June 24, the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war took a surprising turn as Russia’s Wagner Private Military Company, a paramilitary organisation, rebelled against the Russian establishment led by Vladimir Putin. The rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of Wagner, claimed control over Russia’s Southern Military District headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, a city near the Ukrainian border and then be...

An India-wide study on the prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes, results of which were released recently, threw up some startling results: 10.13 crore people in our country of 140 crore could be diabetic, and another 13.6 crore are estimated to be at the pre-diabetic stage. The study was conducted by the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Res...

On May 31st, the Union Health Ministry issued a notification making it mandatory for over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms to display anti-tobacco warnings as seen in movies screened in theatres and on TV. The notification amended the rules under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2004. The OTT industry is quite upset with this move for various reasons, not the least of them being tha...

Over the past few weeks, there have been news headlines about Ariha Shah, a child of Indian parents, who was taken away by child care authorities in Germany after she had been hospitalised for an accidental injury. Despite no charges being filed against the parents, the baby was not returned to them. A diplomatic spat has now broken out between New Delhi and Berlin, and 59 Parliamentarians from 19...

The RBI's Monetary Policy Committee decided to continue to retain the benchmark interest rate at 6.5%. Its estimate for inflation in FY24 is at 5.1% which is lower than the upper tolerance limit of 6% but still higher than the desired midpoint level of 4%.  Given the RBI's, and other central banks', hawkish view on rates, where does India's economy stand? Would the impetus for economic growth have...

India’s ambitious cheetah relocation project got a shot in the arm when one of the translocated females gave birth to four cubs in March. These were the first cheetah cubs to be born in India since the species went extinct in the country 70 years ago. But in an unfortunate turn of events, three out of the four cubs have died, and the fourth one, also reported to be very weak, is under close medica...

The government of India has always claimed that India is the fastest growing economy in the world. The latest GDP numbers would seem to buttress that claim. On the back of a fourth quarter growth of 6.1%, the GDP growth for the financial year 2022-23 has been recorded at 7.2%, which is much higher than the earlier RBI projection of 6.8%. On the one hand, this is good news, and of course, good opti...

After its loss in the recent Assembly elections in Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party is left with no State government in south India. It is part of an alliance in the Union Territory of Puducherry. The governments of the five States of the south are led by different parties — the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala, the YSR Congress Party i...

Of late there has been a lot of buzz around what’s known as the Account Aggregator ecosystem or framework. It’s a form of ‘open banking’ that has emerged with the blessings of the RBI and, according to analysts, could transform the financial services industry by making it easy for consumers to give their consent to sharing their personal financial data with different service providers. Although it...

Of late there has been a lot of buzz around what’s known as the Account Aggregator ecosystem or framework. It’s a form of ‘open banking’ that has emerged with the blessings of the RBI and, according to analysts, could transform the financial services industry by making it easy for consumers to give their consent to sharing their personal financial data with different service providers. Although it...

The rise of OTT platforms have transformed the entertainment market the world over. At present, there are 50 to 60 OTT streaming platforms operating in India, presenting the consumer with a bewildering array of entertainment options to choose from. In this scenario, a new breed of players is emerging in India: the OTT aggregator. Platforms such as OTTPlay, YuppTV Scope, and Tata Play Binge are bun...

Last month, the Supreme Court directed all States and Union Territories in the country to follow guidelines formulated by the Union Health Ministry to monitor “unnecessary” hysterectomies being performed. A hysterectomy is a surgical procedure to remove a woman’s uterus, and sometimes, the surrounding organs and tissues.  The PIL petition that the Supreme Court acted on, was filed in 2013 by Dr Na...

The National Pension Scheme (NPS) was launched in 2004. While the older pension scheme offered defined benefits to all government employees without any contribution on their part, the NPS requires employees to contribute a sum throughout their working years. Almost two decades after the NPS came into effect, several States are switching back to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS). Earlier this year, the...

On May 20th, Russian forces managed to take control over the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. The ‘battle of aBakhmut’, which has been raging for nine months, has seen some of the bloodiest fighting in Europe since World War 2. With Ukraine investing a lot of its resources in defending the city, the fight for it took on a symbolic significance. In his speech to the U.S. Congress last year, Pres...

The Central government introduced the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023 in the Lok Sabha on March 29th this year. Generally speaking, the Bill exempts certain types of forest land from the protection afforded by the Act. It also expands the list of activities that can be carried out on forest land. Both these aspects have drawn an outcry from conservationists and environmentalists, who ar...

This year’s French Open, which is starting on May 28th, will take place in the looming shadow of 14-time champion Rafael Nadal’s absence. It is also expected that this year could finally mark the long overdue transition in men’s tennis – from the domination of the Big Three of Nadal, Federer and Djokovic, to the next generation of players led by the likes of Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune and Jannik...

Even before the World Health Organisation announced this month that the Covid-19 pandemic no longer constituted a global emergency, the pandemic had begun to slowly fade from public memory. For some people however, health issues from the viral infection remain even months since they first contracted the infection: long Covid continues to haunt hundreds of people in the country. Long Covid has a wi...