In Focus by The Hindu

Last week the NCERT revised its book on medieval history for Class 9 students. The book, Understanding Society: India and Beyond, presents a long span of 700 years from 1000 AD to 1700 as one of resistance and resilience, a period when the Rajputs, the Jats, the Sikhs and the Ahoms resisted foreign invasions. The period is presented as the one in which the "Indian society not only defended itself from external threats but also preserved its traditions”. In many ways this book is a continuation of the process of presenting history through a new prism, a process which began in 2023 and has se...

The Supreme Court has called out the rampant profiteering in the healthcare sector, including cancer medication. Terming the overpricing of essential cancer medicines as “broad, daylight dacoity”, the court said, “This is carnage. Plain and simple. The cancer drug is priced at an MRP of Rs 27,000 despite being supplied to retailers for Rs 2,700.” Ten times higher markup! It also suggested capping the profit margin for all medicines at 16%. India’s cancer burden is growing at an alarming rate. Every year, we record 15.6 lakh new cancer cases, and 9 lakh deaths due to cancer. More than 90% of India’s working population doesn’t have...

Kaziranga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is at the centre of a debate over how much protection should extend beyond its boundaries. The Assam government has proposed a site-specific Eco-Sensitive Zone of around 1-3 km in different stretches, replacing the 10-km buffer currently applicable to Kaziranga. In this episode, we unpack what an Eco-Sensitive Zone actually does, why these zones are created around protected areas, and what the Supreme Court has said about their minimum extent and site-specific nature. The conversation looks at the legal process for changing Kaziranga’s ESZ, the concerns of communities living around th...

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met last week for a summit aimed at easing tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The meeting produced agreements on trade and rare earths, along with unusually warm public messaging from both sides. But major differences over Taiwan, technology and the broader strategic rivalry remain.

The summit comes at a time when Mr. Trump’s approach to China appears increasingly transactional, even as Washington continues to compete with Beijing for influence across the Indo-Pacific. It also comes at a significant moment for India, with the U.S...

As Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls Phase 3 unfolds, a surge in Form 7 applications, the mechanism for seeking deletion of names, in Karnataka has raised an alarm. More than 4,000 such forms were filed in the state, with 1,363 in one place coming from just ten electors, many reportedly targeting Muslim names. Uttarakhand has seen objections filed in an ERO’s name without his knowledge, while in earlier phase 2 in West Bengal, data shows nearly 90% of Form 7 applications were accepted.

Similar cases have been reported by The Hindu from Rajasthan and Gujarat earlier. What does the law require of th...

India is entering a demographic window of opportunity. For the next 15 years or so, our ratio of our working age population to the dependent population will be the highest. This is a historic opportunity to convert this demographic dividend into economic dividend.Now, cities are the engines of economic growth. To make our demographic dividend count, we need to create urban dividend. This basically means that our cities should be able to offer millions of jobs, host thousands of firms, and provide the urban services needed to sustain a large working population.Is India ready for this challenge?A...

Joy Bhattacharjya discusses the scale and cost of organising the fixture, India’s decision to prioritise Brazil over the ASEAN Cup and the wider debate over the AIFF’s priorities Brazil are coming to India for a high-profile friendly in Kolkata, but what does the game really mean for Indian football? The high costs involved and India's decision to pull out of the inaugural ASEAN Cup to accommodate this fixture have sparked a debate on the merits of hosting star teams while India’s domestic football structure continues to face challenges. Does a marquee game against Brazil justify the invest...

Technology, and especially AI, are no longer just a tool for humans. Today they control our choices, shape our daily routines, and determine how we invest our energies. This is true at the level of the individual, and also at the level of the nation-state. While at the individual level, the key question concerns freedom, for the nation-state, it’s more about sovereignty – does India get to independently decide its own policies, or are they pre-decided for it by other geopolitical actors? A good example is how our banks do KYC. Thanks to a poorly designed framework, it has serv...

In this special weekend bonus episode, we have a crossover with the Hindu's Rearview podcast.

Common birds are no longer common. Rural landscapes now host fewer Black Drongos and Indian Rollers; Nightjars call less frequently from the edges of forests; Black-shouldered Kites perch less often on telegraph wires; Eagles are scarcer in the skies; and Harriers patrol protected grasslands in dwindling numbers as they search for insects. What is causing this disappearance? Renowned ornithologist and former Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) director Dr Asad Rahmani’s latest book, ‘Where Are the Birds Gone?’, investigates the alarming long-term declin...

From the beginning, civil society and section of political parties have questioned an exercise of such enormous scale, one that was presented as an effort to clean up the electoral rolls and identify suspected foreign nationals, but has already led to more than 13 crore names being deleted at the draft stage.Those concerns have now moved beyond the SIR, into the functioning of the Election Commission. A recent investigation report found that two of the three Election Commissioners raised formal objections 14 times in 10 months over decisions relating to electoral rolls and SIR, including the centralisation of the voter database...

In the ongoing session of the UN General Assembly, France has made a proposal to enhance the functioning of the UN, especially in dealing with the requirement for collective security and the use of veto. France has been advocating that the use of veto in the UN Security Council should be “regulated” when it comes to dealing with humanitarian criss, like in Sudan or in Lebanon or genocide. France believes that the use of veto is not a matter of “privilege” and that it is a matter of “responsibility”.

Guests: Prof. Amitabh Mattoo, Dean of School of Internationa...

The Tata Group is facing its most consequential governance crisis in decades. N. Chandrasekaran, who had announced his departure, has now been reappointed by the Tata Sons board, even as the Tata Trusts, which control 66% of the holding company, challenge that decision. At stake is more than a chairman or a listing: it is a contest over who controls India’s largest business house, how its governance model should work, and what happens to the values and public purpose that have defined the Tata name for generations. So, how does this end — and what has Tata meant to India?

Why is India continuing to buy Russian crude despite growing pressure from the United States? And what happens if Washington imposes steep tariffs on Indian exports over those purchases? In this episode of The Hindu’s InFocus, we spoke to Professor Anuradha Chenoy, Adjunct Professor at the Jindal School of International Affairs and former Dean and Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of International Studies. We discussed India’s strategic autonomy and its dependence on Russian oil, the potential impact of secondary tariffs on Indian exports, and the unusual reversal in the oil trade after Ukrainian drone strikes disrup...

In this special bonus episode at In Focus we have a special crossover episode featuring the Hindu's Global Faultlines podcast with Sharmada Venkatasubramanian and Stanly Johny.

The UAE has emerged as one of the most influential powers in West Asia, using diplomacy, trade, investment and strategic partnerships to extend its influence far beyond the Gulf. But its relationships with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel have grown increasingly complex, while the Iran war has tested its carefully calibrated regional strategy. At the same time, Abu Dhabi is deepening its strategic partnership with India. In this episode, we examine...

In this episode of In Focus Weekend Podcast, we speak to Chandan Gowda, a noted sociologist. He is currently the Dean of School of Liberal Arts, Vidyashilp University, Bengaluru. He has formerly worked with National Law School of India University Bengaluru, Azim Premji University and Institute of Social and Economic Change. His recent book "Longing for an Elsewhere: Mysore and the making of India's Developmental State", traces the trajectory of the model of development free india adopted to one of its origins in the Mysore state during colonial times. It argues development is not just an economic argument, but...

The 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou saw India’s best ever performance – we came back with 107 medals, including 28 gold medals, and we finished fourth on the medals table, behind only China, Japan and South Korea. The 2026 Asian Games will officially kick off in from September 19, and the big question is: can improve on its performance? In this episode, we preview ’s prospects, and joining us is Uthra Ganesan from The Hindu’s Sports Bureau. Host: G Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu Producer: Jude Weston Editor: Jude Weston and Shiksha Jural Video: Tayyab Hussain

Learn more about yo...

With a strong pushback against unilateral western sanctions; criticism of Israel over the killing of civilians, the attacks on Lebanon, and the forced occupation of Palestinian territory; and support for United Nations reform as well as a BRICS payment mechanism, the New Delhi Declaration of 2026 has been likened to India’s foreign policy from its non-aligned past. But was it a compromise by New Delhi in order to build a consensus, or will the statement, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s close engagement with the leaders of Iran, Russia, and China, have a bearing on India’s future foreign policy...

The Western Ghats in India is a mountain range that is considered next only to the Himalayas in terms of being a biological treasure trove with a high degree of endemism and scenic beauty. It has also been declared as one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity. However, in recent times, it has been in the news for threats to its unique ecosystem, especially with every episode of an ecological disaster. Yet, every attempt that has proposed to address these problems - be it the Gadgil committee report or the Kasturirangan report - has met with opposition. The la...

The recent BRICS summit in New Delhi, held under India’s presidency, brought together an expanded grouping at a time of major geopolitical and economic shifts. The summit sought to deepen cooperation among its members while navigating their often divergent strategic interests.

West Asia, in particular, posed a significant diplomatic challenge. The New Delhi Declaration addressed the situation in Gaza, the Iran conflict and the wider instability in the region, while India also sought to facilitate dialogue between Iran and the UAE.

So, what were the key takeaways of the Delhi summit? How did BRICS ha...

The Security Council is paralysed, and Superpowers haven’t recognized there are limits to their power says UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, in his most scathing comments about the culture of “impunity” and divisiveness that besets global leadership.

This episode, we have an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, the UNSG, who demits office at the end of the year weighed in on a number of issues, including UN reform, the election for his successor, the latest developments in the West Asia war, Israel’s war in Gaza, India’s efforts in the Russia-Ukraine war, and t...

Doomsday scenarios of an ‘AI takeover’ have been part of popular lore for a long time. Skynet, Terminator, and Agent Smith are fictional icons of this narrative. What may seem a paranoid fantasy appears to have unfolded in real life, with the recent hacking incident involving AI infrastructure platform, Hugging Face. OpenAI was conducting a cyber-evaluation of some of its AI models, and according to a report put out by MERT and Redwood Research, AI safety experts, about 1,200 AI agents, who were supposed to be isolated from one another, colluded and collaborated through an unsanctioned message board. They cheated on t...

The Iran war has entered another dangerous phase, with the confrontation between Tehran and Washington increasingly spilling into the Persian Gulf. Iran has stepped up attacks on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz, while the U.S. has intensified efforts to restrict Iranian oil exports. At the same time, questions over Iran’s nuclear programme remain unresolved, and tensions are rising across Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.

So, what is Iran trying to achieve with this escalation? What remains of Iran’s nuclear programme? Is the conflict turning into a wider regional war, and is Lebanon becoming its next...

Recently, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a one-year moratorium on generative AI tools for public school students through Class 8 for the 2026-27 academic year. Officials argued that young children require human connection and independent problem-solving skills instead of relying on algorithms. Should the use of Gen AI be banned among younger students?  

Guests: Lavina Jaswani and Deepa Jacob

Host: Priscilla Jebaraj

Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Western Ghats in India is a mountain range that is considered next only to the Himalayas in terms of being a biological treasure trove with a high degree of endemism and scenic beauty. It has also been declared as one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity. However, in recent times, it has been in the news for threats to its unique ecosystem, especially with every episode of an ecological disaster. Yet, every attempt that has proposed to address these problems - be it the Gadgil committee report or the Kasturirangan report - has met with opposition. The la...

The implementation of the creamy layer doctrine for OBC reservations has been beset with complications. A Supreme Court judgement on March 11 essentially held that Union government has been doing it all wrong all these years, and that their income/wealth test was subjecting a section of OBC applicants to “hostile discrimination”.

The Supreme court gave the government six months to implement its order with regard to the litigants. But the government has told the court that it will be too complicated to implement its order retrospectively. For instance, one immediate concern: what happens with the results of the...

This is a special bonus episode featuring the Hindu's Global Faultlines podcast where Sharmada venkatausbramanian is in conversation with Stanly Johny.

Israel has fought multiple wars and military campaigns since October 7, in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, while expanding its military and intelligence operations across the region. But military reach does not necessarily translate into strategic victory. What has Israel actually achieved, and at what cost? Has it strengthened its security and position in West Asia, or created new vulnerabilities and deeper isolation? How have these wars changed Israel’s relationship with the United States, the Gulf and In...

There’s been a lot of excitement in the cancer research field recently. Preliminary results from a trial with patients who had melanoma or skin cancer, showed that a ‘cancer vaccine’ had been successful in reducing the recurrence of melanoma tumours. This vaccine, called instamaren autogene, is based on mRNA technology – the same tech that was used to manufacture Covid vaccines during the pandemic. A number of other trials across the world are also looking into how mRNA vaccines can help prevent the recurrence of certain hard-to-treat cancers.

So what are these new therapies and what cancer do they...

Much was expected from the Indian men’s hockey team after back to back bronze medals at the highest level of the sport – the Olympic Games. The core of the team that took part in the recently concluded World Cup was the same as the one that medalled at the Paris Olympics in 2024. Yet we struggled against the top teams at the recently concluded World Cup. Despite having a coach in Craig Fulton who is known for a defense-first approach, the single most disappointing aspect of the team’s performance was in defence, as it conceded 19 goals in just six ga...

Last week, jewellery brand Giva withdrew an advertisement it made for Raksha Bandhan after netizens criticised actress Kriti Sanon’s outfit as too revealing for a traditional festival. The incident is the latest in a series of brands backtracking on their advertisements following backlash that is often religiously or communally charged.

Given India’s current socio-political climate, are brands overreacting to manufactured outrage? Here, we discuss the question.

Guest: Mitushi Sharma and Santosh Desai

Host: Sonikka Loganathan

Producer: Jude Weston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit mega...

The resilience of a nation’s economy is determined by the quality of its human capital. Other things being equal, a country with a healthy and educated population will grow much faster than one with a semi-literate and undernourished one.

And yet, has historically, and consistently, under-invested in health and education – neglecting them even in years of high economic growth. There is a strong tendency to dismiss state expenditure on people’s well being a as ‘freebies’ or ‘revdi’. But are they freebies or are they basic rights that people can demand from the state?

Guest: Reetika...

As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its fifth year, the conflict shows little sign of ending. Russia and Ukraine continue to intensify drone and missile attacks, while efforts for a possible diplomatic breakthrough remain uncertain. Is Vladimir Putin under growing pressure? How has the nature of the war changed, what is driving the escalation?

Guest: Stanly Johny, International Affairs Editor, The Hindu

Host: Smriti Sudesh

Edited and produced by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Do you not want people to be healthy?” That was the question the Supreme Court put to the FSSAI earlier this month, while hearing a case over warning labels on the front of packaged food, for foods high in sugar, salt, and fat. The Court questioned why the regulator had delayed implementing stronger warnings, particularly when the issue directly concerns public health and children.The question becomes even more significant now, after a media investigation found that some of the world’s biggest food and beverage brands use substantially different formulations for their products in India and abroad, with Indian...

This is a special weekend crossover episode featuring the Hindu's Rearview podcast.

Did Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi solve the Riemann Hypothesis - one of mathematics's greatest puzzles? Was Kosambi, who wrote one of the most influential books on studying Indian history, ignored by both mathematicians and historians? Is he India's Alan Turing? This week we interview Prof Ram Ramaswamy, whose biography of the remarkably eclectic DD Kosambi: DD Kosambi, One Life, Many Worlds, gives a dispassionate, scholarly and insightful look into this mathematician and historian who was also a Sanskrit scholar and avowed Marxist. Ramaswamy, who's taught at...

India has a waste management problem. Though we reportedly collect 90% of our municipal solid waste, nearly 40% does not enter formal processing. Due to this large share that is out of the formal processing system, most Indian cities have garbage mountains – open dump sites and landfills. These dump sites have been linked to groundwater contamination and other public health risks. Critically, they are massive sources of non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as Methane.How to eliminate or shrink these dump sites? How to ensure that waste segregation is followed all the way from the collection point till the end of the fr...

The Supreme Court has been discussing linguistics this month, while hearing challenges to the CBSE’s three-language formula, which mandates that two of the three must be native Indian languages, a category that does not include English. The Bench has been debating whether English should be considered a foreign language in India, given its long history in the country, and its role as a link language in governance and in higher education.

We discuss the same question in this week’s Parley, with Apoorvanand, a professor in the Hindi department of the University of Delhi, and Ganesh Devy...

Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) for women have become extremely popular. So far, more than 14 states have done it, benefiting 120 million women. The monthly payouts range from Rs833 to Rs2,500. State governments spend more than Rs2 lakh crore annually on such schemes. But at the same time, at least six such states projected a revenue deficit for 2025-26, pointing to the growing fiscal pressure due to the rapid expansion of women-centric cash transfers. There is a raging debate on whether unconditional cash transfers are crowding out state expenditure on social infrastructure such as public health and education. A new book...

Road traffic noise is a major environmental pollutant. Indian cities are cacophonous. They are not designed to insulate residents from sustained exposure to traffic noise. A new research paper has found a worrying link between traffic noise exposure and dementia, and also cognitive impairment. The paper, titled ‘Association of road traffic noise exposure with dementia or cognitive impairment – A systematic review of longitudinal cohort studies’, has been co-authored by Emil Basil Scaria and Nisha Dhanda, and was published on PLOS Global Public Health earlier this year. 

We speak with the lead author of the study.

This year, residents in several Indian cities -from Mumbai to Bengaluru - have experienced a shortage in water supply. India's big cities are expanding in terms of size and population. This has also meant a strain on existing resources such as land and water. We have already seen cities such as Bengaluru attempting to implement restrictions on use of potable water for non-potable purposes. But do our cities need more than that to ensure water security for the future? How water stressed are Indian cities? Guest: Priyanka Jamwal, Programme Leader and Senior Fellow, Water and Society Programme, ATREE Raj...

It’s one of those conditions that has no symptoms during its early stages, meaning that by the time it is diagnosed, it could be very late: chronic kidney diseases, or CKD, has been in the news recently after a Parliamentary Standing Committee tabled a report on this condition in the Rajya Sabha earlier this month, and made a series of 66 recommendations. Significantly, the committee recommended diagnosis methodologies, called for a national CKD screening protocol and a registry, highlighted CKD of unknown etiology in certain States especially among agricultural workers and recommended greater use of peritoneal dialysis.

So...

“The biggest hurdle to police reforms comes from the bureaucracy itself – IAS officers who hold key positions at the Centre and in all departments of the governments and local bodies in the states,” writes Yashovardhan Azad in his new book, ‘Policing the Republic: An Inside View of How India Fights Corruption and Crime, and Protects Rights.’

Mr Azad, a former IPS officer who has served as special director at the Intelligence bureau and Central Information Commissioner, argues in his book that corruption and the breakdown of institutional credibility are two major challenges hobbling the India story. In this episo...