By Rosamma Thomas*  The announcement that veteran actor Mammootty has been awarded the Padma Bhushan—an award that recognises “distinguished service of high order”—was welcome. The question movie-watchers in Kerala were asking, though, was whether the award was actually for the actor or an olive branch held out to the people of Kerala by the Union government.

By A Representative   Gram Sabhas across several states used Republic Day observances on January 26 to register strong opposition to the VB-GRAMG Act and to demand the restoration and strengthening of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA). MGNREGA workers and rural residents raised these demands through resolutions adopted in Gram Sabhas held in states including Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh.

By N.S. Venkataraman*  In India, despite steady growth in industrial, infrastructure and service sectors—including the software industry—in recent years, the economy essentially remains agriculture-based. Agriculture continues to be a strong, sustainable and stabilising force in the Indian economy, and this reality is likely to persist for the foreseeable future. Any policy approach that undermines this foundation, therefore, calls for serious scrutiny.

By Suyash Gupta*  India’s worsening air quality makes the shift towards clean mobility urgent. However, while electric vehicles (EVs) are central to India’s strategy, they alone cannot address the country’s diverse pollution and energy challenges.

By Ilya Ganpantsura  Does university discourse shape public opinion? And can the discourse of humanitarian and cultural institutions influence military planning? Today, I will attempt to answer these questions by examining one of the most unexpected yet all-encompassing trends in this context — the issue of decolonization. In my view, however, this issue has become particularly complex in Ukraine. Here, in order to communicate with society, the authorities have traditionally sought a support group and, by relying on it, have opposed not only an external enemy but also certain groups within the population who, by their nature, are not enemies of Ukraine. Rather, these groups are oriented toward creating something that goes beyond a strictly national Ukrainian framework and are not solely focused on confrontation with Russia or the promotion of national-patriotic ideas. Yet the ideological tool chosen by the current Ukrainian government is not aimed at maintaining a national-patrioti...

By A Representative   The India-Palestine Solidarity Network (IPSN) has strongly condemned the announcement of a proposed “Board of Peace” for Gaza and Palestine by former US President Donald J. Trump, calling it an initiative that “condones war crimes against children and women” and “rubs salt in Palestinian wounds.”

By Vikas Meshram   For several decades, Iran has been under a rigid religious regime, with voices of resistance surfacing periodically. Yet the current wave of protests stands among the most intense and widespread in recent memory. Despite brutal crackdowns, threats of execution, and attempts to brand dissenters as “enemies of God,” public anger shows no sign of subsiding. 

By Vijay Prashad   The agreement that brought the Syrian Kurdish enclave to an end has been marketed by its signatories as a pragmatic settlement, but in reality it marks a decisive political defeat for Syria’s Kurdish formations. The swift advance of armed groups loyal to President Ahmad al-Sharaa overwhelmed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), yet this outcome cannot be understood without acknowledging the full backing extended by the United States to the Syrian government against its former Kurdish allies. 

By Harsh Thakor*  Vladimir Fock occupies a distinctive place in the history of twentieth-century science, not only for his profound contributions to theoretical physics but also for his sustained effort to reconcile the most advanced scientific theories of his time with Marxist philosophy. Born in 1898 and active through some of the most turbulent decades of Soviet history, Fock became a central figure in demonstrating that quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity need not be viewed as hostile to dialectical materialism. His life’s work unfolded at the intersection of science, philosophy, and ideology, where intellectual courage often carried personal risk.