Insights, a blog published by IMPRI.
Beijing is tightening its clamps on components that are integral to technology supply chains. Lithium batteries and related material, artificial diamonds that have industrial uses and rare earths like holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium have been put on China’s export-control list.
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.
Although GST rate rationalization was lauded, another low-hanging fruit that could come next is disinvestment.
Bhutan, one of the most important countries from a Geostrategic angle, is located between Tibet and North-East India and also to the nearest points of the Chumbi Valley of Tibet, Sikkim and the Eastern borders at the same time the proximity of Bhutan from the Siliguri corridor which is the connecting point of the seven north eastern states of India is crucial for both India and Bhutan.
The much-delayed Fourth Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee met in Beijing from October 20-23. Of the seven plenary sessions during a CCP congress, the fourth typically focuses on strengthening the party and governance. At this meeting, the formulation of the 15th Five-Year Plan for 2026–2030, personnel appointments and policy changes took precedence over other matters.
There are good reasons for India to continue sourcing oil from Russia, notwithstanding the latest American sanctions on Russia’s oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft. India has a stake in Russia retaining its great power status, for which Moscow needs to have continued access to its only all-season naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea. That, in turn, calls for Ukraine to stay neutral, rather than join NATO, and for Russia to have control of eastern Ukraine, through which run the land routes from Moscow or St Petersburg to Crimea. Buying Russian oil is not primarily about cheaper energy, as far as India is concerned.