RajivBuzz

  In a candid conversation that blended personal memoir with sharp critique, veteran civil society leader Ingrid Srinath painted a sobering picture of a sector adrift—caught between corporate metrics, regulatory chokeholds, and a fading sense of purpose. Speaking on the  latest episode  of the YouTube series Unmute, hosted by Gagan Sethi and Minar Pimple, Srinath—former Secretary General of global watchdog CIVICUS and founder of the Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy (CSIP) at Ashoka University—urged civil society to reclaim its soul before it's too late. 

It is always sad when a journalist colleague passes away — more so when that person has remained firm in his journalistic moorings. Compared to many others, I did not know R.K. Misra, who passed away on February 23 after a long illness, very intimately, but we interacted occasionally over the years.

  Across the West, immigration has increasingly been framed as a cultural threat or a political liability, a stance most visibly associated with Donald Trump but echoed in varying degrees across Europe and other advanced economies. What this debate often ignores is a hard demographic and economic reality: without sustained immigration, much of the Western world faces a shrinking workforce, rising dependency ratios, and long-term stagnation.

  The  first page image  of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the  Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020),  has gone viral  on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the  Galgotias University  as its original product at the just-concluded  AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by   Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

  By Rajiv Shah  A recent book, " Luminous Footprints: The Christian Impact on India ", authored by two Jesuit scholars,  Dr. Lancy Lobo  and  Dr. Denzil Fernandes , seeks to counter the current dominant narrative on  Indian Christians , which equates  evangelisation  with conversion, and education, health and the social services provided by Christians as meant to lure -- even force -- vulnerable sections into Christianity.

The other day, I was talking with Martin Macwan, a well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader. He revealed to me an interesting chapter of the Gandhian movement in Gujarat — how Ravishankar Maharaj (1884–1984), a prominent Gandhian social reformer of the state, played a pivotal role in the struggle for temple entry for Dalits (then referred to as Harijans) in the late 1940s.

Decades ago, when I was a student at Delhi University, the Left-wing student organisations, one of which I was a part of, would hold a highly negative view of NGOs. They would go so far as to castigate them as imperialist or CIA agents -- just because they were foreign-funded, by bodies such as Amnesty, Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, and Greenpeace.

On the evening of February 14, after banking hours, I received a strange SMS from Bank of India (BOI)—where I maintain a very small, largely inactive account. I had opened it years ago simply because a branch was located near my home. However, finding their services quite poor, I rarely use it anymore.

I am compelled to refer to a blog by communications expert Tushar Panchal titled "The Grip, the Choke, and the Follow-Through." Forwarded to me by a friend, it calls Rahul Gandhi's Parliament intervention on February 11, 2026, the "most strategically constructed speech of his parliamentary career."

  A new study titled “From Tobacco to Ultraprocessed Food: How Industry Engineering Fuels the Epidemic of Preventable Disease”, published in  The Milbank Quarterly , warns that  ultraprocessed foods  are deliberately engineered in ways similar to cigarettes and should be treated as a major public health threat rather than as ordinary food products.

  By Rajiv Shah  More than a decade ago, when I was with The Times of India, I used to write a regular weekly column called True Lies. The column—which still continues—was mainly about gossip surrounding Gujarat government bureaucrats, though I occasionally wrote about ministers as well. In that column, I would often refer to what IAS officials described as their informal weekly Monday morning tit-a-tat over tea.

The advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) has sharply criticised the  Union Budget 2026–27 , calling it a “budget sans kartavya” that weakens public welfare while favouring private corporations, even as inequality, climate risks and social distress deepen across the country.

​India’s once-unstoppable residential real estate rally has hit a significant roadblock, as new data reveals that housing sales in 2025 plummeted to their lowest levels since 2022. According to the  Real Insight: Residential CY 2025  report by  PropTiger.com , the sector is grappling with a cooling demand cycle that has seen annual sales tank by 12%, dropping to 3,86,365 units from the high of 4,36,992 units recorded just a year prior. 

A  new study  from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad suggests that television in India is far from fading away amid the digital boom, but is instead poised for significant growth, potentially reaching a staggering 1 billion viewers by 2029. Titled "Future of TV in India," the report by Professors Viswanath Pingali and Ankur Sinha challenges the notion of TV's decline, arguing that it is "quietly preparing for its next expansion" driven by rising internet penetration, economic improvements in rural and low-income areas, and demographic shifts.