In Focus by The Hindu

This March was the hottest on record globally, the 10th month in a row to hit this peak. This has led to a 1.58 degree Celsius spike in the global average temperature, compared to pre-industrial levels. This doesn’t feel surprising – most parts of India have been sweltering since last month, the India Meteorological Department or IMD hadd forecast heatwave conditions in parts o

The delay in conducting the 2021 census seems to have sparked a data crisis, with major implications for the social sector, especially public health policy. This crisis, according to public health analysts, has been worsened by the government’s reluctance to put certain types of data in the public domain, over concerns they might show it in an unflattering light. In the context o

Baby foods, drinks and protein powders have all been in the news of late – are these products harming rather than helping your health? The latest controversy has centred around Nestle, a well known brand in India – an investigation recently found that all Nestle baby cereals sold in India contained almost 3g of added sugar – but the same cereals sold in European markets had n

Gukesh Dommaraju, the 17-year-old Indian chess prodigy, has become the youngest player ever to win the Candidates tournament. As he broke a 40-year-old record in the name of Garry Kasparov, Gukesh became only the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to win a Candidates event and earn the right to challenge the world champion for the title. But Gukesh’s journey hasn’t been easy

Elon Musk is coming to India. He is meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and is likely to announce the entry of Tesla into the Indian market. The timing of this visit is interesting. Tesla used to be the world’s largest seller of electric vehicles or EVs – but it lost that title to China’s BYD Auto last year. Also, most of the EV markets in the West --- in North America and

The Indian government recently brought in an amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act with regard to captive elephants. This amendment, the rules for which came in last month, regulates the transfer or transport of captive elephants, and has sparked an outcry from animal rights activists. Elephants are, according to the Wildlife Protection Act, a Schedule 1 species – offered the

It was expected that Iran would respond to the bombing of its consulate in Syria on April 1 in an Israeli strike. The retaliation came last Saturday when Iran launched a direct attack on Israel. Israel claims to have intercepted 99% of the 300-odd drones and missiles fired by Iran, but a few of the missiles did sneak through its defences and hit sensitive military targets on Israel

It’s election time in India. The Modi government is touting India’s strength abroad as one of its achievements. Earlier in April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an election rally that India today kills terrorists in their own homes. Asked about a report in the Guardian newspaper that India had killed 20 alleged terrorists in recent years in Pakistan, Defence Minister Rajn

Is it okay for the Union government to impose limits on how much a State government can borrow? Or does a state government have an “enforceable right” to decide its own borrowing limits? This question, raised by the Kerala government, has been referred to a Constitution Bench by the Supreme Court. The key constitutional question that the Supreme Court wants a five-judge bench t

The 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) is seeing a rather unusual controversy – Indian fans have been booing, and in some cases, abusing, a star player of the national team wherever he’s gone to play. At the receiving end is Hardik Pandya, the erstwhile captain of Gujarat Titans, who has moved to Mumbai Indians. He is now the skipper of Mumbai Indians, replacing Ro