The ongoing conflict in West Asia has triggered a sharp escalation in input costs across energy, packaging, and logistics, all of which are critical to the seed industry’s functioning. The first casualty of rising operational costs and increasing financial stress almost always is investment in research, which may help in sustaining margins in the short…
The PM has called for spending wisely—starting at the pump. The bigger leak is at the traffic signal. Outside Parliament in Delhi, convoy vehicles often stand for hours waiting for MPs and VIPs — engines running, ACs blasting continuously. Hundreds of cars. All burning fuel while stationary, generating more heat in already unbearable conditions, and…
Western leaders have much to learn from Narendra Modi’s consistent focus on the environment. On Monday 18 May, the world’s most popular politician will visit Norway. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be received by King Harald, promote Indian business, meet with the Indian diaspora and attend an India-Nordic prime ministers’ meeting. The Nordic prime…
Iran war will probably hurt growth, but proactive policies can absorb much of its impact India’s economy is probably not going to grow as fast in 2026 as people had hoped. At first, experts thought the economy would grow by around 7%. But after the US and Israel attacked Iran, oil prices jumped and the…
When President Donald Trump lands in Beijing on May 13 for a two-day state visit and summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the world will be watching a diplomatic engagement that carries implications far beyond ceremonial optics between the globe’s two largest powers. Trump’s first visit to China since 2017 comes at a moment…
Even as India is poised to launch its first human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan, social media has embarked on a very different type of space exploration – the use of horizontal lines of varying length to separate the space between words on the written or printed page, as in this sentence. Called dashes, these word separators…
Iran war will probably hurt growth, but proactive policies can absorb much of its impact It’s clear that 2026 won’t be a great year for the economy. It started with projections of 6.8-7.2% growth. A day before US attacked Iran, the chief economic adviser actually raised his estimate to 7.1-7.4%. But now, with oil shock…
NEET cancelled. NTA’s institutional failure is traumatic for students. It’s also costing the economy Two years ago, on June 13, 2024, over a month after NEET was held on May 5, Dharmendra Pradhan emphasised there had been no ‘leak’ of the all-India medical entrance exam paper. By June 25, CBI was on the case, as…
A pregnant 15-yr-old’s ordeal again underscored the conceptual flaw in our abortion law. MTP law, despite amendments, makes terminating pregnancy an arbitrary process. Everyone has a say, except the woman In 2021, after five decades of silence, India amended the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act. The revision extended abortion access to 24 weeks for…
We have had time to prepare for the challenges we may face now with the conflict in West Asia. But we didn’t get our house in order. Hopefully, there is still time to do the heavy lifting and rise to PM’s appeals My parents got married in 1963. Ahead of the wedding, as the radio…