Antarctica is now at the heart of global climate governance as it continues to contribute to sea-level rise, influence climate and house unique biodiversity. India’s Antarctic programme is a model of science-led, collaborative engagement that links climate monitoring with environmental stewardship a1nd international diplomacy in the sustainable management of one of the world's most fragile ecosystems.
Policy UpdateAsmatwali Background Tensions between Pakistan and the Taliban-led government of Afghanistan, simmering since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, escalated into open warfare in late February 2026. Following weeks of militant attacks inside Pakistan, the Pakistan Air…
Policy UpdateAsmatwali Background Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook a six-day, three-nation tour of Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand from 6 to 11 July 2026, comprising a State Visit to Indonesia (6-8 July), the Third India-Australia Annual Summit in Melbourne (8-10…
Policy UpdateAsmatwali Background India and Japan trace their contemporary partnership to the 1952 Peace Treaty, progressively upgraded into a “Global Partnership” (2000), a “Global and Strategic Partnership” (2006), and the “Special Strategic and Global Partnership” (SSGP) in 2014, anchored since…
On June 22, 2026, West Bengal's newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, led by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, presented its first full-year budget for 2026–27, ending over a decade of Trinamool Congress (TMC) rule in the state. Finance Minister Swapan Dasgupta's budget speech had two competing jobs to do: hold on to the welfare architecture built by the outgoing TMC government, which remains politically indispensable in Bengal, while signalling a new emphasis on industrial revival, infrastructure expansion and fiscal discipline (The Daily Pioneer, 2026).
Access to higher education in India has long been constrained less by aspiration than by affordability. West Bengal, despite a relatively strong base in school-level enrolment, has historically trailed the national average in higher education participation. It was against this backdrop that the state government launched the West Bengal Student Credit Card (WBSCC) Scheme on 30 June 2021, under a Gazette Notification issued by the Higher Education Department, positioning it as a flagship intervention to remove the financial barrier standing between capable students and tertiary education.
The Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886 is a colonial regulation which existed in a land and population very different from the current state of Assam. This system persisted for over 100 years, resulting in a large number of people without any formal rights to the land that they had long cultivated, even when ownership had been passed down through generations, including cultivators, workers in the tea-garden, tribal families and families displaced by floods. A combination of successive erosion of the riverbed of the Brahmaputra and its tributaries and periodic flooding, coupled by the inadequate rate of cadastral survey, added to the problem and large numbers of Assam's rural population were deprived of legal status in the land, whether Khas (government) or Ceiling Surplus (cadastral surplus) land.A government-appointed committee headed by former Chief Election Commissioner H.S. Brahma, tasked with examining land rights of indigenous people in Assam, found in its 2018 report that close to 90% of the state's native population lacked formal land ownership documents, and that approximately 8 lakh indigenous families were entirely landless.