T.K. Arun Data-centre tax holidays represent oodles of government cash to favoured Indian businesses for little public benefit The 21-year tax holiday doled out by the Union Budget to foreign firms that do data centre business in India should be rolled back,…
India continues to add renewable power generation capacity without any coherent strategy for its full utilisation, often ordering RE generation to back down to maintain grid stability. A vital deficit is a policy for storing renewable power, which is intermittent and missing from action for much of the day, forcing reliance on thermal power as India's mainstay.
Fast-growing countries urbanise, and the share of urban population rises. Since India has not had a Census since 2011, the size of the current urban population is an estimate. The World Bank puts it at 37%, below the world average of 58% and China’s level of 66%. Towns are where the bulk of economic activity, particularly in the modern, evolving sectors, takes place. If India is to grow, so must its total urban space.
The recent Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate cuts in India have come against the backdrop of U.S. President Donald Trump's penal tariffs. On August 7, Trump signed an executive order imposing an additional 25% tariff on certain Indian goods so that these exports would now face at least 50% tariffs, compared to 30% on Chinese exports and 19% on Bangladeshi exports. Naturally, India's competitors stand to benefit, while Indian exports would decline sharply.
The Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) is a globally oriented research funding initiative focused on advancing fundamental life sciences through interdisciplinary and intercontinental scientific collaboration.
The Himachal Pradesh government has again opened the debate on relaxing Section 118 of the Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, 1972 — a provision that has, for five decades, protected the state's most sacred resource: its land. Under this Section, a non-agriculturist cannot buy land in Himachal without prior permission from the state government. This legislative instrument ensures that land is not reduced to a commodity but continues to embody livelihood, culture and ecological balance.Today, in the name of "encouraging investment, industry, tourism and housing", the state government is tempted to loosen this protective clause. But to tamper with Section 118 is to play with fire.
COP30 highlighted children’s growing exposure to climate risks, yet weak commitments on emissions, adaptation finance, and systemic drivers left the promise of child-centred climate action largely unfulfilled.