Opinion

Sophie Sirtaine & Buhle Goslar   Over the past five decades, microfinance has grown into a $1.5 trillion global industry, reaching hundreds of millions of households that conventional banks have never served and likely never would. It has enabled unbanked people around the world to...

India’s ethanol push is no longer just about blending petrol. With proposals to extend its use to aviation, the debate has intensified over whether the country is rushing into a fuel whose costs may outweigh its benefits. Concerns range from damage to existing vehicles and...

The self-immolation of exiled Tibetan activist Lobga Rangzen outside the United Nations headquarters in New York on 2 July was not an expression of personal despair. It was a desperate attempt to jolt the world out of its growing indifference to one of the most...

By Santosh Kumar Mohapatra The latest income classification released by the World Bank in July 2026 deserves far greater attention than it has received. While public discourse in India continues to celebrate the country’s rapid GDP growth and its emergence as one of the world’s...

By Dhurjati Mukherjee Nearly 75% of the world’s population lives in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure. The prediction of below-normal rainfall this year in India due to El Nino effect may further cause a crisis in the country. The world is already in...

By Sourjeet Pradhani Every year, the streets of Puri become a sea of people as millions gather to witness the majestic Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath. For devotees, this festival is an expression of unwavering faith. For administrators, it presents one of the most complex public...

By Jasmine Meher The economic trajectory of post-liberalisation India has long been dictated by a predictable, well-trodden path: a migration of labour from agriculture to heavy, carbon-intensive industries, followed by a gradual climb into service sector dominance. Yet, for a resource-rich state like Odisha, this...

By Rajdeep Sardesai My earliest encounter with the leadership of the Sangh Parivar came in 1989 when I was sent to cover a press conference of the late Ashok Singhal, then president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). It was the high noon of the Ram...

By Slavoj Žižek Francis Fukuyama’s 1990s end-of-history thesis was the last big narrative that united the liberal-democratic West. Western liberal-democratic welfare-state capitalism, he argued, was the best possible social system. The only remaining question was empirical: Precisely when and how would other parts of the...

The booming growth of AI, along with its evolving engagement with everyday issues, reveals that AI is set to become a staple of daily life—mapping and shaping people’s choices across everything from food and friendship to family, health, and livelihoods. AI is going to be...