In Focus by The Hindu

After years of slow-moving negotiations, India’s trade policy has shifted gears. Over the past three and a half years, the country has signed a string of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to increase market access for Indian goods and services. The latest, with New Zealand, may appear modest in isolation, but it is significant when looking at what has been happening over the last five to six years.  Wh...

Following the recent electoral setbacks faced by two of the largest constituents of the INDIA bloc, the DMK and the TMC, there is renewed debate over the future of Opposition politics in India. Do these developments signal a turning point for the INDIA bloc, or are they part of a longer structural shift in Indian politics? T Is this the end of the road for the INDIA bloc? Here, we discuss the ques...

For the second time in a couple of days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the public to take some austerity measures: reduce fuel consumption, defer gold purchases, reduce foreign travel and consume less edible oil and fertilisers. “The West Asia crisis is one of the worst in the decade; just as we overcame the COVID-19 pandemic, we will come out of this also,” he said while addressing an a...

Former India coach and Olympian U. Vimal Kumar joins the podcast to discuss India’s Thomas Cup campaign, player recognition, squad depth concerns and badminton’s new scoring system. India returned from the Thomas Cup in Denmark with a bronze medal, its second podium finish in the last three editions of badminton’s premier men’s team event. But despite another strong campaign on the world stage, th...

A new health scare made headlines this week, after three persons died and several others fell sick aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship. The infection in this case, was hantavirus, something most people have not heard of. Passengers from the stricken ship disembarked today after it docked at the Canary islands, and are flying back to their home countries, many of which are imposing quarantine require...

In this episode of In Focus podcast, London’s Lady Mayor Dame Susan Langley speaks with The Hindu’s Maharashtra Chief of Bureau Vinaya Deshpande about her maiden visit to India, the voices she heard from the financial and insurance service industry, and the opportunities for both the countries in view of the India – UK Free Trade Agreement. She is only the third woman to hold the Lord Mayor’s Offi...

The Supreme Court of India recently asked the Central government to amend the abortion law to remove the time limit on medical terminations of unwanted pregnancies in the case of minor rape victims. While this was observation was made while hearing the case of a 15-year-old rape survivor to terminate a 30-week pregnancy, it throws up broader questions of abortion access in India. While in general...

The 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election has delivered a verdict few anticipated. A political landscape long defined by the alternating dominance of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has been decisively disrupted. At the centre of this churn is the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, led by C. Joseph Vijay, which has emerged as the single largest party in its electo...

The assembly election results have sharply changed the political landscape in India, with the BJP set to form a government on its own for the first time in West Bengal. Mamata Banerjee, the three-term chief minister often spoken of as the ‘real’ Opposition leader to the BJP, has ended up losing her own seat. In Tamil Nadu, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) a two-year-old political start-up, has emerg...

Negotiations between the United States and Iran have stalled due to deep disagreements over Iran’s nuclear program, economic sanctions, and regional influence. The U.S. wants stricter limits on uranium enrichment, while Iran demands sanctions relief. Mistrust built over decades, especially after the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, has made compromise difficult. Ongoing tensions in the Mi...

We know by now that extreme heat can impact pregnancies in many ways. And with climate change contributing to extreme heat in India – and with parts of the country already reeling under scorching heat – this has become a significant health concern. But what do we know about temperature and its link with sex ratio at birth? Can exposure to intense heat during pregnancy influence whether you have a...

Is India’s middle class facing an economic crisis? A new book, ‘Breakpoint: The Crisis of the Middle Class and the Future of Work’ by Saurabh Mukherjea says that it is. It argues that three factors have upended the consumption-driven model that powered the prosperity of India’s middle class since 1991. These are: technological disruption eliminating white collar job creation, wage stagnation erodi...

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is facing a crisis. Seven of its 10 MPs in the Rajya Sabha, led by Raghav Chadha, have joined the BJP. Mr Chadha has framed this move as a “merger” with the BJP. Rajya Sabja Chairman C.P. Radhakrishnan has already accepted the ‘merger’ claim. AAP’s strength in the Rajya Sabha has dwindled from 10 to 3.  AAP leaders have called this merger ‘illegal’. They want the seven MP...

Public Interest Litigation (PIL) emerged in the 1970s as a transformative judicial innovation aimed at widening access to justice for the poor and marginalised. This was achieved by relaxing the strict rules of standing to permit representative actions, and by broadening the scope of judicial notice to allow courts to take suo motu cognisance of public issues and convert them into litigation. Over...

We all know that India is one of the most unequal societies on the planet. But most debates around inequality are focussed on wealth and income inequality. But there is another form of inequality that isn’t talked about much – temporal inequality. How much time a person spends waiting – determines how much time she has for other life-critical activities. In India, it is the poor who spend more tim...

The recent allegations of sexual harassment by eight female employees in Tata Consultancy Services’ (TCS) office in Nashik has brought renewed attention to workplace safety and grievance redressals of sexual harassment complaints. In this episode, Advocate Geeta Rameshashan joins us to discuss how the PoSH Act works, the limitations of internal committees, and what prevents women from reporting se...

By the time farmers in Haryana were ready to head to the anaj mandis (grain markets) to sell their Rabi harvest, the rules of entry had been revised. The Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board's March 28 directive introduced a new set of conditions for crop procurement — mandatory registration on the 'Meri Fasal Mera Byora' portal, Aadhaar-based biometric verification, and vehicle number regis...

In this weekender episode, Adrian Wolfson talks us about his new book titled On the Future of Species. Artificial intelligence, he says, one day, could surpass Darwin’s evolutionary narrative on natural selection, and in this new world, he predicts AI not just editing, but authoring entirely new species using what he calls artificial biological intelligence. While we have managed to piece together...

Workers in the industrial belts of the NCR region and beyond have been agitating for better wages since February 2026 On April 13, a protest in Noida over salary disparities descended into violence. Around 50 vehicles were burn. Police resorted to lathi-charge. Over 300 workers were arrested. Many are still in jail, and serious charges have been framed against them. Trade union activists have clai...

Since March, the country has witnessed a number of agitations by workers, particularly by those in manufacturing sector. In the background of these protests for minimum wages, for expansion of social security ambit and against contractualisation of jobs, the role of trade unions have come up for discussion. There have been concerns about the impact of deunionisation on the workers. In this episode...

India now operates the third-largest metro network in the world by length. But can scale alone make a transit system transformative? This episode explores whether the metros across 26 cities are being built to serve the larger needs of urban mobility. We discuss what must align for metro networks to evolve from landmark infrastructure into the preferred, everyday choice for how most people move th...

On March 20 this year, the patent for semaglutide, which is the active ingredient of blockbuster drug Ozempic, expired in India. The country was ready: nearly 40 generics are either in the market now or will be out soon. The story of Ozempic and weight-loss drugs falling under the GLP-1 category, is now a few years old, though studies continue to research how these drug impact the human body. Up u...

CAR-T cell therapy, a breakthrough treatment that has transformed certain cancer outcomes, is now showing early promise in tackling autoimmune diseases. In a recent case in Germany, a patient with multiple severe autoimmune conditions entered treatment-free remission after receiving the therapy, raising fresh questions about its potential beyond cancer. In this episode, we break down how CAR-T wor...

Tamil Nadu is often seen as one of India’s strongest economic performers, recording 7.4% growth in 2025-26, with manufacturing registering real growth rate of 14.74% in 2024-25, well above the national average. Real growth stood at 11.2%, among the highest for major states. Exports have nearly doubled in just four years, and incomes remain among the highest in India. The state is now aiming for a...

As 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon came into effect from midnight of April 16, 2026. The truce, announced by US President Donald Trump, could offer some relief to Lebanese civilians who have been facing relentless attacks from Israeli air and ground forces since March. More than 2,100 Lebanese have been killed in Israeli strikes since March 2026. The attacks – a combo of air and ground...