In Focus by The Hindu

The semiconductor ecosystem in India has been abuzz with energy ever since the government announced a ₹ 76,000 crore scheme to incentivise semiconductor and display system manufacturers to set up shop in India. Corporate announcements have also started trickling in. Vedanta has allied with Foxconn for its foray. The ISMC of Israel has signed an MoU wit Karnataka. In all this, there still lingers t...

Five months have passed without the Government appointing a Chief of Defence Staff. The post fell vacant after Gen. Bipin Rawat died in a tragic helicopter crash on December 9. It was speculated that the former Army Chief Gen. Manoj Mukund Naravane would be appointed the new Chief of Defence Staff but he retired from service at the end of April. Why has the Government not appointed a new Chief of...

In March this year, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his counterpart from Meghalaya Conrad Sangma signed an agreement in New Delhi to partially resolve the 50-year-old border dispute between the two states. Reports indicate that matters have been resolved in six out of the 12 border locations that had disputes. At the same time, Home Minister Amit Shah has said that 70% of the border d...

In the last week of April, Twitter’s Board of Directors unanimously accepted billionaire businessman Elon Musk’s buyout offer of $44 billion. The deal is currently pending regulatory approval. But as and when it goes through, it will allow Musk to take Twitter private, giving him complete control over what he has described as a “de facto public town square”. Will the SpaceX and Tesla CEO do a good...

Wheat procurement in the country by the Food Corporation of India and State government agencies is expected to be about 22 million tonnes – just half of the 44 million targets set for this season. News reports suggest that exports are causing wheat prices to rise beyond the Rs. 20 per kilo of the minimum support price fixed by the Central government. What are the challenges for wheat procurement a...

Political entrepreneur, politician, election guru – there are many ways to describe Prashant Kishore – who clearly enjoys a larger than life status in the country’s politics. Is he really that important that party after party is courting him to help them win elections? Are there any others like him? Why did he decide not to join the Congress party despite a firm offer? Guest: Javed Ansari is a Del...

It is now exactly two months since the start of the Ukraine war. What many expected to be a quick assault resulting in Russian control over Ukraine has devolved into a grinding war of attrition. While Russia has made territorial gains, it has also suffered heavy losses. The Ukrainian armed forces have been putting up a stiff fight, especially around urban centers, and the national capital of Kyiv...

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat said recently that Akhand Bharat would be a reality in the next 20 or 25 years. In his remarks, the RSS chief said nobody could stop India’s march forward. “Those trying to impede the country’s march forward will either move away or be removed from the scene,” he was quoted as saying. Mr. Bhagwat is an important man as the RSS-affiliated BJP has been...

Early in March, a public interest litigation petition came up in the Supreme Court -- two retired CRPF personnel said that between 2007 and 2019, 148 Central Armed Police Forces personnel, deployed in Naxal-affected Bastar district, died by suicide. This is not the only statistic about defence personnel dying by suicide -- from 2014 to 2021, nearly 800 Army, Navy and Air Force personnel died by su...

At a time when most parts of the world are easing COVID restrictions and even mask mandates, Shanghai is in the middle of a brutal lockdown. There have been reports of a sharp spike in the number of cases, although reported deaths are and restricted to the very old. Shanghai’s 25 million residents seem to be increasingly fed up with the government’s ‘Zero COVID’ policy, which has caused supply cha...

Earlier this month, telecom regulator TRAI announced its recommendations to lower the reserve price for spectrum auctions. Now, overall reserve prices for the spectrum auctions would be up to 40% lower than recommended earlier. Of this, spectrum for 5G telecom services will be 35% cheaper. The question is, are these prices low enough for an industry that has been plagued by financial woes for a wh...

A new Prime Minister in India or Pakistan usually means new opportunities for dialogue and engagement. Congratulatory messages are exchanged, and in the days when India and Pakistan engaged in dialogue, restating your commitment to a dialogue process usually followed. India-Pakistan relations have always been topsy-turvy but the August 2019 decision by the Modi Government to denude Jammu and Kashm...

The University Grants Commission (UGC) announced on April 12 that students can now pursue two full-time academic courses in physical mode, simultaneously. It has also issued a set of guidelines for the same. What prompted the UGC to come up with this option – was there a demand for it from students or educational institutions? Will this option increase the competitive pressure on all students – to...

The first round of the French Presidential elections got over last Sunday, and two candidates, President Emmanuel Macron, and leader of the far-right National Rally, Marine Le Pen emerged on top with the highest tally of votes. While Macron won the first round with 27.8% of the votes, Le Pen secured 23.2%, while the leftist politician Jean Luc Melenchon finished a close third with 22% of the votes...

If there is one story that defines India’s foreign policy after the 1998 nuclear tests, it is that of New Delhi’s engagement with Washington across Prime Ministers – Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and now Narendra Modi. The tango is yet to end and the dance masters remain committed to the relationship. Despite India’s membership of mutually antagonistic clubs like the Shanghai Cooperation Or...

In its latest assessment report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has laid out several scenarios on the steps that ought to be taken to keep temperatures below 2°C. It warned that even temporarily exceeding the warming level of 1.5°C over the next two decades would mean additional severe impact, some irreversible. Arunabha Ghosh, founder and CEO of the Council on Energy, Enviro...

The lead headline in ‘The Indian Express’ newspaper after Pakistan’s National Assembly voted out a Prime Minister for the first time ever said it all. “Imran Khan goes, kicking & screaming”, it read. Refusing to read the writing on the wall, Mr. Khan tried desperately to hang on to power even on the 9th of April, delaying a vote in the National Assembly after the country’s Supreme Court, in a unan...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to Delhi reaffirmed India’s decision not to join the sanctions regime against Russia, despite a string of emissaries from the US, EU and other countries calling on India to shift its position in the Ukraine crisis. Guest: D.B. Venkatesh Verma, former Indian Ambassador to Moscow Host: Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Editor, The Hindu Edited by Reenu Cyriac...

Mortgage lender HDFC Ltd is all set to merge with HDFC Bank. Under the terms of the deal, which is one of the biggest in the Indian financial sector, HDFC Bank will be 100% owned by public shareholders, while existing shareholders of HDFC Ltd will own 41% stake in HDFC Bank. The news immediately led to a sharp spike in the share prices of both the companies. So, what exactly is the financial ratio...

As anticipated by many, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan did not go by the book and ensured that his handpicked Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri did not put the pending vote of no-confidence against him to vote on April 3. Instead, the Prime Minister advised Pakistani President Arif Alvi to dissolve the country’s National Assembly and four provincial assemblies, which was done with lightning speed. Th...

Up until January this year, only two people were ever reported cured of HIV/AIDS. And now, researchers have said there may be a third case -- an African American woman, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2013, and started on anti-retroviral therapy. In 2017, she was diagnosed with leukaemia and received embryonic stem cells, in the form of cord blood, from a donor who had a rare mutation that naturally...

On March 28, the government introduced a new Bill in the Lok Sabha – the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022. The Opposition vehemently opposed it, going so far as to seek a division of votes. But it failed to defeat the introduction of the Bill, as it could muster only 58 votes against, with 120 votes in favour of the Bill. On the face of it, the Bill proposes to empower police and pri...

Earlier this week, on March 27 and 28th, the Negev desert in Israel saw a summit of foreign ministers from six countries. Along with Israel’s foreign minister Yair Lapid and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, also in attendance were the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Morocco and Bahrain. Hailed as a ‘historic summit’ by Israel, the meeting is widely seen as an att...

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine crosses the one-month mark, there have been calls for cessation of hostilities from across the world even as the devastating human and physical toll of the conflict become increasingly clear. While there is a glimmer of hope in the form of potential negotiations between Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin of Ukraine and Russia respectively, some of the...

For quite some time now, Indian badminton’s biggest success stories have mostly been women, with the headlines dominated by the likes of P.V. Sindhu and Saina Nehwal. Titles by the men haven’t always come at the highest level or consistently. But 20-year-old Lakshya Sen has surprised everyone with consistent performances at the highest level over the past nine months. His run to the final of the A...