RajivBuzz

By Rajiv Shah   Recently, I received a message from someone I had known since my Gandhinagar days, when I represented the Times of India from 1997 to 2012. He wanted to send me the English translation of a memoir he had written: " Homes Without Windows ". Thin, short, and darker in complexion than me, he would occasionally come down to my office in Akhbar Bhawan. His name is Chandu Maheria .

The world's 65 largest banks collectively committed $906 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2025, an increase of nearly 8 percent from the previous year, according to the seventeenth edition of the Banking on Climate Chaos report released in June 2026. The report , produced by a coalition of environmental and advocacy organisations including Rainforest Action Network , tracks lending and underwriting by major financial institutions to companies across the oil, gas, and coal sectors. Since the Paris Agreement went into force in 2016, the report finds that these banks have together channelled $8.7 trillion into fossil fuels — an amount the authors argue, had it been directed toward renewables, would have made the global energy system significantly more affordable, resilient, and climate-proof.

A massive gathering in the national capital last month has thrust a long-simmering political demand into the mainstream — the removal of Scheduled Tribe (ST) status from tribal individuals who convert to Christianity or Islam. The development has set off alarm bells across Northeast India , where tribal identity, religion, land, and political autonomy are inseparably intertwined.

The heavy military presence and frequent communication blackouts in Jammu and Kashmir are taking a disproportionate toll on female education, reversing years of progress and driving up school dropout rates for girls, according to a recent analysis published in The Conversation . ​Writing for the publication, Shambhavi Siddhi , a PhD candidate in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Western University , highlights that while the Indian government cited " women's empowerment " and the eradication of gender discrimination as key motivations for revoking Jammu and Kashmir's semi-autonomous status in August 2019, the reality on the ground has told a vastly different story for young women seeking an education. ​Rising Dropout Rates and Low Literacy ​According to data presented before the Indian parliament in March 2026, the secondary-level dropout rate for girls in the region peaked at 12.6% during the 2023–24 academic year—surpassing India’s national average of 9....

A shocking episode of mass fish death in East Delhi’s Sanjay Lake has sparked outrage among environmental groups and citizens. While initial reports attributed the incident to the ongoing heatwave and climate change, the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has squarely blamed mismanagement and prolonged disruption of water supply as the primary cause.  

In a  sharp rejoinder over the proposed Kalpasar reservoir project in the Gulf of Khambhat, with former Government of India Secretary Babubhai Navalawala has dismissed the alternatives floated by veteran sociologist Prof. Vidyut Joshi as mere “supplements” rather than substitutes for the mega project. In the rejoinder to Prof. Joshi’s recent column Samudra Manthan  in Gujarati daily  Sandesh  (see news item here ), Navalawala has argued that the scientific options suggested by the sociologist cannot replace Kalpasar.