The Gender Centre at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) has released a  pivotal report  shedding light on the state of women’s empowerment across India. This study focuses on the subnational (district) level in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), which aims to promote gender equality. 

  India’s climate tech ecosystem, which boasts over 800 startups, is in dire need of both early and growth-stage funding to leverage its full potential, according to a report by Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (Ventures) and  MUFG Bank , Japan. Despite a robust initial funding landscape, with approximately two-thirds of climate tech startups receiving seed capital, growth-stage investments remain critically lacking. 

 A new ActionAid report has exposed the alarming financial drain on the Global South, as climate-wrecking industries like fossil fuels and industrial agriculture receive over US$600 billion annually in public subsidies. The report, "How the Finance Flows: Corporate Capture of Public Finance Fuelling the Climate Crisis in the Global South", reveals that an average of US$677 billion in public finance is directed toward climate-destructive sectors each year, depriving crucial social sectors such as education. 

  A headcount enumeration of homeless persons in Delhi conducted between 27 August 2024 to 31 August 2024, to understand the extent and magnitude of homelessness in the city, has revealed that around 300,000 people, including, families, women, children, and older persons are forced to live in the open without shelter even during the rainy season.

 A new survey,  The Detrimental Effects of Hindu Nationalism on Indian American Muslims , conducted by the Washington DC-based diaspora group Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and Chicago-based ReThink Media, which offers in-depth media, messaging and opinion research, has claimed existence of alarming trends regarding the rise of Hindu nationalism within the Indian diaspora in the United States and its profound impact on Indian American Muslims.

  A fact-finding report details events following an incident near the Variyavi Bazaar police chowki on Variyavi Bazaar Main Road in Surat. According to the report, a Ganesh pandal was situated 50-100 meters from the chowki. It is alleged that 5-6 Muslim children, aged 8-10, arrived in an auto-rickshaw driven by a Hindu and threw stones at the Ganesh pandal, hitting drums placed there.

The environmental advocacy group South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) has issued a  warning , supported by detailed diagrams, that the Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) is at risk of causing flash floods in the Narmada Valley this year, similar to incidents that occurred last year. 

The year was, if I remember correctly, 1990. At that time I was special correspondent of semi-left Patriot daily and Link newsweekly in Moscow. Mikhail Gorbachev's parestroika and glasnost were on an upswing, though keen observers seemed to notice cracks beginning to appear in the powerdom under him. Apparently to assess what was happening, the then Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary EMS Nambudaripad had come down to Moscow along with young Sitaram Yechury -- the party general secretary who passed away on September 12, 2024 at the age of 72. Young Yechury looked like the photo above.  I had never met either of them when in Delhi, but had heard about Yechury, who was a Jawaharlal Nehru student activist-leader associated with the CPI(M) student wing, Students' Federation of India (SFI). I was a year junior to him then, and was in Delhi University in first half of 1970s. Most of us in the Left would talk about him as an open minded, soft spoken student leader,...

  The latest Business Inflation Expectations Survey (BIES) of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has suggested that while business inflation expectations have decreased significantly by 29 basis points, falling to 4.21% in July 2024 from 4.50% in June 2024, and the average inflation expectation among firms over the past 12 months stands at 4.44%, overall, "early indicators suggest a slowdown in the economy."