Category Public Policies, Programs and Schemes

Cancer

Expanding the Definition: The Case for Recognizing Cancer-Related Disabilities in India

India is witnessing a troubling paradox. Advances in diagnosis and treatment mean that more people are surviving cancer than ever before. Yet the very systems that should protect these patients and survivors are failing to recognise the lasting impact of cancer on their lives.

Tribal

The Decline of Maoism and Its Impact on Tribal Communities

The Maoists might have been looking after their own interests more than those of the tribal people, and hindering State efforts to extend the scope of governance and development to their habitats, but they also raised a voice of protest against acts of injustice against the tribals.

Air

The Air That Betrayed Me: A Personal Reckoning with Delhi’s Toxicity

November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month. Across the US and Europe, white ribbons mark solidarity with patients, caregivers, advocates and doctors. In India, silence reigns, even though 93 of the world’s 100 most polluted cities are here, and here, lung cancer is rising alarmingly among non-smokers, especially young women.

Nearly one in three lung cancer patients in India today has never smoked, and doctors are seeing women in their late 20s and 30s being diagnosed with advanced disease.

This is not a smoker’s disease anymore — it is a breather’s disease, driven by toxic air and environmental exposures.

Energy

India’s Renewable Energy Push Needs Storage to Last

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.

Airports

How to and How Not to Privatise Airports

Airports are local monopolies, for the most part. Who gets to operate them and on what terms matter to the public at large. Sure, there is a regulator, the Aeronautic Economic Regulatory Authority of India to regulate aeronautical and other charges at any given airport.

Trump

Trump, AI and the Global Growth Test of 2026

Earlier this month, Sam Altman of OpenAI declared Code Red at the company: the latest version of its chatbot was underperforming Google’s latest offering, Gemini 3. That panic had one simple explanation: he believes artificial intelligence (AI) to be yet another technology service in which the winner takes all.

Commercial

Who Should Pay to Preserve Urban Commercial Heritage?

When a sudden rent increase forces a thriving commercial establishment — that has a century-old legacy and is a hallmark of a historic locality — to shut shop, is there any sensible alternative to the mournful death of a chunk of the city’s living tradition? 

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