Policy UpdateRashi Kothari Background & Structural Context The rapid digitization of retail payments in India—driven by UPI, 24/7 NEFT, RTGS, and mobile banking—has fundamentally reshaped consumer financial behavior (RBI, 2023; FSB, 2023). While this digital infrastructure has lowered transaction costs…
The divide between the rural and urban areas has long been the divide in India. According to the National Sample Survey Office data, only about 24 per cent of rural households have internet access, as against about 66 per cent in urban households, while the figures released by the TRAI indicates that the broadband penetration rate in urban areas is approximately 93 per cent and in the rural areas it is about 29.3 per cent.
India's security environment has grown more complex, with threats now surfacing across land, maritime, air, cyber and space domains at the same time. This has raised the importance of jointness and integration among the Army, Navy and Air Force. The three Services have traditionally run largely separate operational structures, coordinating through higher-level mechanisms rather than a unified command.
India produces and exports turmeric in larger quantities than any other nation; but it took several decades for this spice to have its own organization. This happened when the Ministry of Commerce & Industry set up the National Turmeric Board (NTB) on October 4, 2023, thus carving out an exclusive body to look after its cultivation, research, standards, and export from the ambit of the Spices Board’s broad agenda. This new body was launched officially in New Delhi on 14 January 2025 through the inauguration by the Union Minister Piyush Goyal and appointing Shri Palle Ganga Reddy, the son of a farmer in Nizamabad, as the Board's first Chairman. The establishment of its office took place on 29 June 2025 in Nizamabad, Telangana, through the inauguration of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and allocation of Rs 200 crore to enhance quality of crops, research, and farmers' welfare
GPU infrastructure is a critical enabler of modern AI development because it provides the computational power required to train large models, process vast datasets, and support high-volume experimentation. This makes it the backbone of any serious AI ecosystem, and its expansion has direct implications for the scale and speed of AI market growth.
The India–UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a major bilateral agreement aimed at deepening trade, investment, and professional mobility between the two economies. Negotiations were formally launched in January 2022 and continued over roughly 15 rounds between 2022 and 2025 (UK Parliament, 2026). The agreement was signed on 24 July 2025 in London by India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and the UK's then Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds, and came into effect on 15 July 2026 alongside a companion Agreement on Social Security (Double Contribution Convention, DCC) (PIB, 2026b).
India’s development depends not only on policies made at the national level but also on how effectively each State and Union Territory (UT) plans and works towards its own development. Every State has different strengths, challenges and priorities. Keeping this in mind, NITI Aayog introduced the State Support Mission to strengthen coordination between the Centre and States/UTs. The Mission aims to help States identify their strengths, set clear development priorities and prepare practical roadmaps for achieving their socio-economic objectives by 2047, while remaining aligned with national priorities.