On October 17, 2025, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expelled nine of its most senior military leaders, including members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), former defence ministers, and theatre commanders, from party membership. While the expulsions were not unexpected, given that most had been detained in recent months, the sheer scale of this purge, surpassing even those under Mao Zedong, startled China watchers.
In a sign of how desperate the situation has become on the US-Russia front, the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, was forced to up the ante against the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, by announcing new sanctions targeting two of Russia’s largest oil companies and postponing his planned meeting with Putin in Budapest indefinitely.
It is an opportunity for both India and Canada to make gains from the crisis that the world is going through by reaffirming trust in each other
In international relations, pauses have a value of their own. Be it misunderstanding, estrangement, skirmish or even a war, a temporary freeze can allow the much-needed legroom for countries to step back and reset. As Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand arrived in New Delhi for a three-day visit, it is precisely such a moment for India-Canada relations.
India’s recent defence engagement with Australia reached a new milestone during Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Canberra and Sydney earlier this month for the inaugural Australia-India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue. The visit, the first by an Indian Defence Minister to Australia in over a decade, produced key defence agreements that upgrade the relationship from declaratory strategic convergence toward greater operational cooperation. The discussions included a Joint Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap to advance maritime cooperation, as well as renewing and strengthening the Joint Declaration on Defence and Security Cooperation.
The Prime Minister’s New 15-Point Programme for the Welfare of Minorities is a major national initiative of the Government of India aimed at ensuring equitable access to development for minority communities. Introduced to integrate minority welfare with mainstream development planning, the programme focuses on education, skill development, livelihood enhancement, security, and social empowerment.
The rich make competitive noise, pollute the air, switch on their air purifiers and air conditioners, and leave the less well-off to choke, wheeze and sicken
Diwali is no longer the gentle festival of lamps, gifting, good food and shared celebration. Diwali is a now a raging battleground of class aggression, in which the rich compete to show they are one up on their neighbours, bursting more copious amounts of crackers and setting off ever more spectacular fireworks. They have their hours of fun, and withdraw indoors to feast and party in rooms where air purifiers and air conditioners do double duty to scrub the air of the filth they have just injected into it.
The story of urbanisation in the Global South – and particularly in India – is not one of industrial expansion or prosperity. It is a story of pauperisation. Cities today are swelling not because factories are hiring, but because the countryside is expelling. This new urbanisation is driven by desperation rather than development – by the push of agrarian collapse, not the pull of industrial promise.