Opinion

Michael Wiegand Much progress has been made on financial inclusion over the last 15 years, with account ownership in low- and middle-income countries surging from 42% in 2011 to 75% today. This largely reflects the rise of new banking models, such as mobile money, which...

Melvin Durai Fat-shaming is generally frowned upon. Most people refrain from making fun of overweight people, even if the British tabloids are fond of publishing photos of celebrities who aren’t as svelte as they once were. While many people can control their weight, others struggle...

By Ajit Ranade India's Election Commission was established 25 January, 1950, a day before India became a republic. This was a remarkable act of foresight. In a democracy, political parties compete for the support of the electorate to earn the right to govern. The contest...

In just a few short years, AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude have become a mainstream technology. The companies behind these innovative products tout their immense potential benefit for humanity. But this narrative, while not necessarily wrong, brushes aside that these models are built on...

An expensive market is ahead. Banks are tizzy. Markets rock and roll. Costly loans may cause a rate-rise phenomenon first time in almost three years. The Reserve Bank of India’s October 2026 repo rate hike to 5.50% was its first increase since February 2023, when...

By DK Giri Swiss President Guy Parmelin’s return to India so soon, he said, was “both a pleasure and a testament to the excellent state of bilateral relations.” On a three-day state visit, his second trip this year after attending the AI Impact Summit in...

By Bruhaspati Samal For decades, a curious contradiction has remained embedded in the working structure of the Central Government: employees belonging to the same broad public-service system are governed by different weekly working regimes merely because one category is described as “administrative” and another as...

By Dr Sankalpa Satapathy When a friend quipped “your choice” on the revelation that another friend was taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medicines, it revealed the profound ignominy associated with mental health. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental...

By Agnia Grigas On 23 September, just a week after NATO aircraft shot down a drone that had entered Lithuanian airspace from Belarus, a Russian military helicopter flying out of Kaliningrad briefly breached Polish airspace. Neither intrusion was an isolated episode. A growing catalogue of...

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak The worldwide horrors of war, conflict, injustice, exploitation, marginalisation, inequality, everyday violence and brutality on a mass scale are designed to numb people and erode their civilised, humane self-confidence and their trust on each other. The aim of these manufactured crises...