On December 8, 2022, a cadre of the Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee (TSPC), a splinter group of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), identified as Raju Yadav alias Raju Ji, was arrested from Patratoli Forest near Nindir village in Latehar District. Yadav, a resident of Chetar village in the Chandwa area of the district, was the ‘area commander’ of the banned outfit […]

On 18 November, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) launched the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2022 (DPDPB 2022). Condensed dramatically from over 90 clauses in its previous iteration, DPDPB 2022, with 30 clauses more concise than its predecessors, loses out on a few definitions and outlines, thus, relying on assisted policies and future guidelines to cover these gaps. […]

Beijing’s claim to Arunachal Pradesh is historically untenable but it has geopolitical motives On December 9, China raked up the issue of Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls “Southern Tibet”, by violating the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Tawang sector. In the clash that followed the incursion, 20 Indian soldiers and a much higher number Chinese were reportedly injured. […]

The foreign ministers of Iran and India called for the expansion of relations between the two countries in various fields.  In a telephone conversation on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar talked about a range of regional and international issues and subjects relating to cooperation between the two nations. The two senior diplomats emphasized the […]

The landslide victory of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the provincial elections in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has set new records. The BJP broke the opposition Congress’ record of winning 149 seats in 1985 with its tally of 156 in the 182-member state assembly, cornering 52.50 percent of the total votes polled. It […]

As the world observed International Anti-Corruption Day on 9th December, it is a good time to do a stocktaking of India’s efforts in tackling the most entrenched and widely visible phenomenon that devalues governance and erodes the average citizen’s trusts in the state. According to Transparency International (TI), India ranks very high (85 out of 180 countries) in the Asian region. […]

On the return flight from Bali, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s suitcase contained a special object: the gavel of the G20 President. Set to stay in India for a year, it is the symbol of honour that comes with presiding over the world’s premier forum for global economic cooperation. But it also signifies responsibility and proffers an unprecedented opportunity for India’s […]

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is confronted with an increasing demand to join the landmark Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It was adopted in January 2021 by 122 members of the UN General Assembly—a clear majority—and has entered into force after its ratification by 50 member-States of the UN. The number of signatories has since risen to 91. […]

On the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with his other engagements that attracted a lot of attention, met his Italian counterpart, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, for a bilateral discussion. As India took the helm of the group of the world’s most advanced economies for 2023, the Modi-Meloni meeting sealed a continuity of engagement […]

India’s grand old party, the Indian National Congress (INC), has elected a new president. This should not be big news, but it is the first contested election in two decades and only the sixth in INC history. It is also the first time since 1998 that someone not named Gandhi has held the post. But the prospects of this exercise in party democracy reviving the […]