Bengaluru, often celebrated for being a ‘garden city’, the ‘IT capital’ of the country, and its pleasant weather, has been making headlines this year for facing a severe water crisis following the drought of 2023. The water crisis is also likely to hit other urban centres and rural areas. According to a recent weekly bulletin by the Central Water Commission, even as peak summer is around the corner, most of the major reservoirs in the southern States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh,...

Many companies that faced regulatory action from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or Income Tax (IT) Department donated electoral bonds worth crores of rupees to ruling parties via the electoral bonds route, show data submitted by the State Bank of India (SBI) to the Election Commission of India (ECI). Some companies which got huge government contracts purchased bonds for large amounts. Some new companies, which were incorporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, purchased bonds worth crores of...

Recently, hours after resigning as a judge of the Calcutta High Court, Abhijit Gangopadhyay announced that he was joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The judge’s decision to join politics and the manner in which it was taken has raised questions of judicial impropriety. Some people disapprove of the practice of judges holding official posts after retirement; they believe that this may impinge upon the independence of the judiciary. Others, including those in the government, have pointed...

NITI Aayog B.V.R. Subrahmanyam recently claimed that less than 5% of Indians now live below the poverty line. He made the claim based on the findings of the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES), 2022-23. Mr. Subrahmanyam argued that the average consumption expenditure in the bottom 5% of India’s population, as estimated by the survey, is about the same as the poverty line in India, suggesting that the poverty rate in India is somewhere in the range of 0 to 5%. Has poverty really...

On February 13, groups of farmers began a march to New Delhi, to press for fulfilment of their demands, which include a legal guarantee for purchasing crops at Minimum Support Price (MSP) and India’s withdrawal from the World Trade Organization (WTO) which, they allege, places pressure on the Centre for drafting policies for procurement and MSP. While the Centre has fixed MSP for 23 farm commodities, it is implemented mostly for rice and wheat mainly because India has vast storage facilities...

Recently, music composer A.R. Rahman tweeted that the song Thimiri Yezhuda from the Tamil film Lal Salaam uses an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software to recreate the voices of singers Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed. Bakya died in September 2022 at the age of 42 and has sung songs in films including 2.0 and Bigil. Hameed, who died in 1998, worked extensively on movies such as Gentleman and Kadhalan. Though their voices were used with the permission of their families, who were also...

India’s growing private coaching industry has long been plagued by student suicides, fire incidents, complaints of poor infrastructure and teaching, exorbitant fees, and false promises. The spate of student suicides in Kota, Rajasthan, has spurred the Ministry of Education to issue new guidelines, which state that coaching centres cannot enrol students below 16 years of age, make misleading promises, and guarantee rank or good marks.  Should coaching be restricted to those above 16 years?...

On February 1, the BJP-led government will place its Interim Budget in Parliament, seeking a vote on account. Has the NDA government’s economic performance in its second term fared better than its first? Here we discuss the question.

On December 27, 2023, the New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its backer Microsoft, accusing them of copyright infringement. The NYT has alleged that OpenAI used thousands of its articles to train ChatGPT, a large language model, without permission or compensation. The lawsuit says that this has positioned ChatGPT as a competing source of information to the NYT, which has implications for the newspaper’s business model.  Should AI models be allowed to use copyrighted material...

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) recently found that over half of the nearly 10,000 hospital patients surveyed for a study were given antibiotics to prevent, rather than treat, infection. The survey mapped patients treated on one to five days each at 20 tertiary care institutes across 15 States and two Union Territories between November 2021 and April 2022. It found that 55% of the patients surveyed were prescribed antibiotics as prophylaxis, or as a preventive; only 45% were...

According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate among graduates is higher than in many other developing countries. Students who enrolled in college during the pandemic have now graduated and there are concerns over their employability and the quality of online education.  Is higher education in India out of touch with the skill requirements in the job markets? Here we discuss the question.  Guests: Furqan Qamar, Professor, Department Of Management Studies, at Jamia Millia...

Recently, Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam, far-right populist, won the general elections in the Netherlands. In Argentina, the far-right politician, Javier Milei, won the presidential elections. In 2022, Marine Le Pen finished a close second in the French presidential elections; and a party with roots in the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement won the general elections in Italy. In the U.S., early polls suggest that Donald Trump has a chance of returning to power again. In India, the Bharatiya...

Recently, President Droupadi Murmu suggested that an All-India Judicial Service (AIJS) will help diversify the judiciary. In the same way that the Union Public Service Commission conducts a central recruitment exam and assigns successful candidates to cadres, the recruitment of judges of the district judiciary is being proposed to be made central, following which they will be assigned to the States. This idea has been discussed in the past and has also been a part of the Union government’s...

In a historic first, all 198 signatories to the 28th United Nations’ Conference of the Parties (COP28) adopted to “transition away” from “all fossil fuels” as opposed to only coal, as was agreed upon at COP26, in Glasgow. India had played a pivotal role in Glasgow in modifying the language from “phasing out” coal to “phasing it down”. Unsurprisingly, it supported the incumbent COP President Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber of the UAE when he proposed to “transition away” from oil and gas, as opposed to...

The world has witnessed several disruptions in recent years. China’s phenomenal rise has unleashed a superpower competition between Washington and Beijing. Russia is challenging the post-World War security architecture in Europe through military means. In West Asia, Israel is engaged in a brutal war with Hamas. The world is also witnessing the rise of several middle powers such as India. Is the emerging global order bipolar? Here we discuss the question

Kerala, a State known for its vibrant public sphere, is now in the news for what film producers have termed as the phenomenon of “review bombing”. Makers of a couple of films have approached the Kerala High Court, seeking a gag on social media and YouTube reviews for at least seven days following a film‘s release; the claim being that these reviews can make or break films, and by extension the sustainability of the Malayalam film industry. The Kerala police have also booked some online...

A Constitution Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud, recently reserved its judgment on petitions challenging the validity of the electoral bonds scheme. The proceedings focused on arguments pertaining to the voters’ right to information vis-a-vis the right to confidentiality of donors. Transparency in election funding has become the central issue here. Should elections be state funded instead? Here we discuss the question.

Starting with the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli targets, , the Israeli Defense Forces have carried out a relentless campaign bombing civilian locations across Gaza. The Israeli argument has been that it is focused on eradicating Hamas but the casualties are mostly women, children and infants which has drawn worldwide condemnation for Israel. Last Friday, the UN saw the adoption of a non binding Jordanian resolution in New York by large majority of member...

The Prime Minister recently said that India aspires to host the 2036 Olympics Games. This has been a dream for successive governments and sports officials. Hosting the Olympics would not only underscore India’s importance as a sporting nation, but also enable it to assert its geopolitical power and showcase development.  Here, we discuss whether India is ready to host the Olympics?  Guests: Manisha Malhotra, Head of Sports Excellence and Scouting with JSW Sports; Norris Pritam, journalist...

A week ago, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu accused the Union government of showing a “step-motherly attitude” towards the State over devolution of funds. Around at the same time, at a media conclave, Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor spoke about the potential danger of political disenfranchisement in the south when the delimitation freeze ends in 2026. These statements have brought the tussle over the distribution of Central taxes as well as the delimitation of...

On October 2, the Bihar government released the data of its caste survey. The data showed that the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) together account for about 84% of the population. This has reopened the debate on whether the 50% legal ceiling on caste-based reservation should be removed.  Here we discuss this question.  Guests: Kalaiyarasan A., Assistant Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies and Research Affiliate at the...

Nearly a year after the Union government decided to cut the number of prizes annually awarded by its science-affiliated Ministries, it has instituted the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (RVP) — 56 prizes to felicitate scientists, technologists and innovators. However, like the Padma awards, these awards will no longer have a cash component.  Here we discuss whether removing money reduce the prestige of awards. Guests: Shekhar Mande, former Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial...

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is like the proverbial genie out of the bottle. In less than a year, chatbots like ChatGPT, Bard, Claude, and Pi have shown what gen AI-powered applications can do. These tools have also revealed their vulnerabilities, which has pushed policymakers and scientists to think deeply about these new systems.  Should generative AI be regulated? We discuss the question here. Guests: Arul George Scaria, an Associate Professor of Law at the National Law School...