Counterview

By A Representative   Welcoming the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation's nationwide public health alert and formal ban against unauthorised skin-lightening cosmetics containing excessive levels of heavy metals, a top advocacy group has  urged the regulator to widen the scope of the ban to cover all such products still openly sold in India. 

By A Representative   Climate, riverine and Indigenous movements from across India have expressed solidarity with communities opposing large hydropower projects in Arunachal Pradesh, while calling for an end to what they describe as intimidation and coercive measures against activists and community organisations involved in the Siang movement.

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  ​The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) radically transformed financial transactions across India by making digital payments effortless, instantaneous, and effectively cost-free for everyone from street vendors to ordinary consumers. Against this backdrop, the decision to introduce a Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on payments above ₹2,000 made to large merchants is far more than an exercise in cost recovery for payment service providers—it carries far-reaching economic and social consequences.

By A Representative   The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA) has issued a sweeping condemnation of the push to implement Uniform Civil Codes (UCCs) across 21 BJP- and NDA-ruled states, warning that the legislation masquerades as gender justice while fundamentally expanding state surveillance, criminalizing consensual relationships, and undermining the constitutional and economic rights of women and marginalized communities. 

By A Representative   For over fifteen years, the villages of Dholka taluka in Ahmedabad district have been living with a slow-moving catastrophe. Untreated municipal sewage and chemical-laden effluent from nearby industrial units have been discharged into open drains, seeping into groundwater and poisoning the borewells that residents depend on for drinking water. What began as an environmental grievance has now escalated into a public health emergency, with villagers claiming that 54 people have died of cancer over the past seven years in five villages—Bhetavada, Trasad, Nesda, Paldi and Ambareli—including 21 deaths in Bhetavada alone.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  ​India’s premier academic institutions have increasingly turned into hostile grounds for students from marginalised backgrounds, particularly Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs. The tragic death by suicide of IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode has provoked deep anguish and student outrage, yet the debate that followed followed a painfully familiar pattern of immediate polarisation.

By Dr A.V. Yadappanavaravar*  Telangana has expanded access to schooling over the years, yet it continues to face a serious literacy and learning challenge—especially in rural areas. The issue is no longer simply whether children are enrolled in school. The more consequential question is whether they acquire the reading, writing and comprehension skills appropriate to their age and grade.

By Nava Thakuria*  Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority South Asian nation of more than 170 million people, has remained under close international scrutiny since the student-led uprising of 2024 that brought down the government of Sheikh Hasina. The country has since gone through a major political transition, with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) returning to power under Prime Minister Tarique Rahman in February 2026. The latest development in this continuing political and legal upheaval is a series of death sentences handed down to seven senior figures associated with Hasina’s Awami League.

By Bharat Dogra   Athletes and sports officials assembling for the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya were probably not prepared for the chaotic reception awaiting them in Japan, a country generally known for efficiency and punctuality. They may have been prepared for the use of shipping-container accommodation, but probably not for shortages of beds and even food, the allocation of the same room to more than one person, inadequate transport, and long waiting hours. In some cases, these problems reportedly resulted in participants missing training and practice sessions.