Counterview

By A Representative   The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed a red hexagonal warning label for packaged foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fat, following a series of directions from the Supreme Court. While the move could mark an important step towards helping consumers identify unhealthy packaged foods, public-health advocates say the proposal contains five significant loopholes that could substantially weaken its impact.

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  The Himalayas are the world’s youngest and one of its most geologically unstable mountain ranges. Earthquakes, landslides and glacier melt are deeply interconnected here. The glacier-related disaster along the Nepal–Tibet border on August 26, 2026, highlights climate change as one of the key factors behind the growing risks in the region.

By Neha Desai*  The Nepal Disaster as Context On or around August 26, 2026, a large section of glacier and rock collapsed high in the Himalayas near the Nepal–China (Tibet) border, in the Langtang Lirung–Lhende area. The collapse triggered a powerful ice-rock avalanche and debris flow that surged downstream along the Lhende, Bhote Koshi, and Trishuli river system. The torrent of mud, rock, ice, and water destroyed villages, roads, bridges, and hydropower infrastructure across tens of kilometres, with impacts felt far downstream.

By Wangchuk Tsering*  The mountains of Arunachal Pradesh are not empty spaces waiting to be transformed into reservoirs, tunnels, and concrete structures. They are living landscapes—home to indigenous communities, ancient forests, sacred rivers, and generations of people whose identities are deeply connected to the land. Today, many communities across the state live with growing anxiety as large hydropower projects continue to move forward in one of the most fragile ecological regions on Earth. 

By Aravind Yadappanavar*  Rajasthan’s government-school network is trapped in a profound systemic paradox. While student enrolment has steadily eroded, the state continues to wrestle with a crippling deficit of basic infrastructure, hazardous school structures, severe teacher-deployment distortions, and a glaring absence of basic utilities. In rural and desert outposts, the reality of public education unfolds not in equipped classrooms, but under rusted tin sheets, beneath the shade of trees, inside cramped rented rooms, and occasionally within animal sheds. In some habitations, school gates remain locked entirely.

By Nava Thakuria*  Developments in northeastern India have brought the issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) back into public discussion, with developments in Manipur and Assam placing questions of migration, citizenship verification and demographic change at the centre of the debate.

By A Representative   The civil rights group, Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), has announced its full support for the Ladakh Peace and Justice March, a foot march from Kargil to Leh scheduled from September 10 to 24, with the organisers calling for the inclusion of Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, full statehood for the Union Territory and justice for the victims of the September 24, 2025 incident in Leh. The announcement followed a meeting of the KDA attended by its Co-Chairmen Asgar Ali Karbalai and Sajjad Kargili, members of the alliance and other concerned stakeholders. Ladakh MP Hanifa Jan was also present at the meeting.

By  Prem Singh  U.R. Ananthamurthy’s "Samskara" (1965) stands as a landmark of modern Indian literature. Set in a decaying Brahmin village in Karnataka, the novel dissects the moral crisis of orthodox Hindu society through the story of Praneshacharya, a revered scholar who breaks caste taboos. Yet for all its radical questioning of Brahminical ritual and hierarchy, the novel remains strikingly conservative in its treatment of women—an irony that becomes especially pronounced when viewed through the lens of Ram Manohar Lohia’s socialist-feminist philosophy.

By Harsh Thakor*  'A Life Well Swum' by Graeme Lowe is a compelling memoir that explores the fascinating world of long-distance swimming and serves as a beautiful reminder that swimming is a wonderful way of experiencing the world. Lowe, who lives in Jersey with his wife Liz where the sea is never far away, initially aspired only to get fit, but swimming a few lengths in the local pool rekindled memories of an unfulfilled childhood ambition: to swim the English Channel. What follows is a lifetime of aquatic adventures chronicled with honesty and warmth, navigating his journey into the world of long-distance swimming from dolphins off Catalina to jellyfish in the North Channel. It is a narration of cold, fatigue and friendships forged through shared challenges, conveying that the most challenging part of the mission is not always the swimming itself, but the decisions and doubts that precede it.