Mining imposes lasting social and environmental costs on the districts where it occurs including land acquisition, displacement, pollution, and depletion of forest and water resources yet for decades the revenue generated from mining flowed almost entirely to state and central exchequers, with no earmarked mechanism to compensate the communities bearing these costs.
The 8th Meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Ocean and Polar Science and Technology (OPST) was held in Goa from 12–14 August 2026 under India’s BRICS Presidency, hosted by the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).The meeting focused on coastal resilience, joint polar and ocean research, the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), Antarctic expeditions and capacity building for young researchers. The discussions also highlighted the commitments for International Polar Year-5. Representatives from eight participating countries, namely Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa and the UAE, attended the meeting. The meeting reinforced the growing importance of scientific cooperation within the Global South in the fields of ocean and polar sciences. It broadened BRICS ocean cooperation beyond diplomatic commitments by advancing wider objectives of collaborative research, infrastructure development, and scientific mobility.
In just one budget cycle India's drone industry went from the fringes of civil aviation policy to an official driver of Aatmanirbhar Bharat. The turning point was the new liberalised Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Rules, 2021, by the Ministry of Civil Aviation notifying on 25 August 2021 which replaced the compliance-heavy Civil Aviation Requirements of 2018 with a lighter framework, where security clearance was not required, type certificates were not required, import clearances were not required, and several other approvals were eliminated, and where close to 90 per cent of Indian airspace was declared as ‘green zones'’ where drone flights up to 400 feet will be allowed without case-by-case permission.
Infrastructure is a crucial foundation for India’s economic growth and social development, supporting industrial activity, employment generation, connectivity, and improved quality of life. Financing is therefore essential for ensuring a steady flow of funds for large infrastructure projects. Over the past decade, the Government has significantly increased public capital expenditure to support infrastructure-led growth and attract private investment. Public capital expenditure rose from ₹2 lakh crore in FY 2014–15 to ₹12.2 lakh crore in the Budget Estimate for FY 2026–27, highlighting the continued emphasis on infrastructure development.
From DPP to DAP. India’s defence capital acquisition system initially operated without a single formal procedure. A basic framework had existed since 1992, but the first structured Defence Procurement Procedure, DPP 2002, came into force on 30 December 2002 and applied to “Buy” decisions of the Defence Acquisition Council (CAG, Defence Audit, cag.gov.in). Over the next 18 years, the procedure was revised eight times, in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2016. These revisions gradually expanded the framework, introducing offsets in 2005, “Make” and shipbuilding categories in 2006, and stronger indigenous content requirements in 2013 (CGDA, DPP 2013). In 2020, DPP was renamed the Defence Acquisition Procedure, DAP 2020, reflecting the shift towards Atmanirbhar Bharat. It introduced an import embargo list, a 50% Indian ownership requirement for “Indian Vendor” status, the Buy (Global Manufacture in India) route and provisions for leasing defence equipment (PIB, Ministry of Defence).
Tamil Nadu's old-age pension is older than the national scheme it now sits inside. The state's Old Age Pension (Normal) Scheme has run since 1 April 1962. Paying destitute persons aged 65 and above (60 if incapacitated) who had no means of subsistence or supporting relatives and moreover owned no property above ₹5,000 and were not professional beggars.
The idea of asset recycling was created globally to help solve the traditional issue for governments known as "the sovereign dilemma" or how to provide new and better public services while keeping their public debt from increasing. The first state (in this case, Australia's New South Wales) to implement asset recycling in its post-recession economic recovery in the 2010s demonstrated that with a few key steps a government can create the cash flow needed to develop new public assets. The concept is simple: build a public asset, de-risk that public asset until it produces steady cash flowing into your budget, then lease those cash-flowing rights to private investors. Thereby immediately creating an influx of funds to start developing the next generation of public assets.