Blogs

India’s Mission for Cotton Productivity is a timely acknowledgement that cotton is central to farm incomes and the textile value chain, but it will deliver only if India treats research and innovation as the mission’s first priority – not a supporting activity. The cotton economy is now constrained less by farmer effort and more by…

For most of the modern internet’s life, discovery followed a familiar ritual. You typed a query, scanned  a page of links, clicked a few results, and slowly formed an opinion. The power lay with the user and  with whoever managed to rank highest on a search engine.  That ritual is quietly ending.  Today, people don’t…

Nuclear power has always rested on a political bargain rather than a technical solution. It promises modernity, energy security, and national prestige, but survives only because states absorb the consequences when its risks materialize. Markets cannot insure nuclear catastrophe. Corporations cannot bear its costs. Law is therefore bent to protect capital and discipline society. The…

Is the gig economy all that different from the informal economy? The question matters because labels smuggle in theories. ‘Gig economy’ arrives with a particular story: flexibility, choice, entrepreneurial agency. But in India, even when the work is intermittent, it often sits inside a broader struggle to stitch together income, day by day, dehadi by…

A structural change is brewing in fund management. Post internet, we saw “Democratization of Data” as every listed company’s filings, financials and management commentaries became available at zero or near-zero cost to every market participant. Now due to AI’s gradual adoption, we are seeing an “Abundance of Intelligence” bringing the same zero or near-zero cost…

“Nothing happens by accident; there is no such thing as coincidence  ” opines Carl Jung. I cling to this consoling thought whenever I attempt—mostly unsuccessfully—to rationalise my utterly irrational, incurable and illogical  fear of rats. It is a fear so intense that even the faintest suggestion of a rat—an ambiguous rustle, a whispered rumour of…

The election battle for 29 municipal corporations across the state, including Mumbai, has begun. Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray have joined hands in this election. The decision of the two brothers coming together is welcome, but the media has gone overboard in celebrating this reunion. This election should focus on the discussions on development of…

By Jug Suraiya Paradoxes and other mischievous pranks our minds play on us. Write on a piece of paper ‘The statement on the reverse is true’. Turn the paper over and write ‘The statement on the other side is false’. Bingo! You’ve created a paradox, a practical joke our mind plays on us. The two…

By launching a military operation against Venezuela and publicly announcing the capture of Nicolás Maduro, Trump was not attempting to resolve a regional crisis, restore Venezuelan democracy, dismantle drug cartels, or stabilise Latin America. Those outcomes are secondary – and, from a political standpoint, irrelevant to the operation’s central purpose. Read full story on TOI+…

Stealth fighters creating air superiority, intelligence operatives guiding precise special forces insertion, and finally a near-bloodless snatch of a serving president – US operation to enforce regime change in Venezuela was certainly peak shock n’ awe. It was also the defining marker of a new Cold War. Read full story on TOI+ Facebook Twitter Linkedin…