On October 17, 2025, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expelled nine of its most senior military leaders, including members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), former defence ministers, and theatre commanders, from party membership. While the expulsions were not unexpected, given that most had been detained in recent months, the sheer scale of this purge, surpassing even those under Mao Zedong, startled China watchers.
India’s recent defence engagement with Australia reached a new milestone during Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Canberra and Sydney earlier this month for the inaugural Australia-India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue. The visit, the first by an Indian Defence Minister to Australia in over a decade, produced key defence agreements that upgrade the relationship from declaratory strategic convergence toward greater operational cooperation. The discussions included a Joint Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap to advance maritime cooperation, as well as renewing and strengthening the Joint Declaration on Defence and Security Cooperation.
Beijing’s new export curbs on rare earths and other tech materials mark a new phase in its bid to weaponize its supply dominance. As Xi tightens control over inputs critical to the US and Trump threatens China with a 100% extra tariff, who will blink first?
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.
It was excellent journalism on the part of Pranshu Verma and Ravi Nair to do the Washington Post story on the government having persuaded LIC to invest in Adani at a time when global investors were hesitant in the wake of an American case against Adani for having bribed officials in India and for having raised funds from American investors on false pretences. Kudos to the two, and to WaPo for publishing the story that Indian publications would have been reluctant to.
From the exploitative moneylender of iconic movies like Mother India to the factory owner who employs goons to beat up workers who dare to stand up against exploitation, the protagonist of business has tended to be portrayed, in the public discourse, as being deficient in ethics. Of late, a subspecies of the immoral tycoon has grownlarger than life: the crony capitalist.
The most momentous event of the last week has been the Gaza ceasefire. It has brought respite for Palestinians from genocidal slaughter and famine, and brought 20 hostages back home to Israel. The peace deal is still fragile, and could unravel.
Two years and two days after the terrorist attack by Hamas fighters from the Gaza Strip that killed around 1,200 Israelis, and the beginning of Israel’s brutal retaliation, that leading genocide scholars and a UN Commission have labelled genocide, a ceasefire plan appears to be taking hold.