By Samata Biswas* KOLKATA. India | 24 February 2025 (IDN) — In January 2022, four members of a family, from the western Indian state of Gujarat, froze to death at the US-Canada border. The couple and their two children had paid a hefty amount to traffickers to be smuggled into the US for what they […]
Importance of the Indian Navy Frigate’s Visit to South Africa
By Guy Martin* The premier online African defence and security news publication defenceWeb issued this article. It is being republished with their permission. JOHANNESBURG, South Africa | 10 February 2025 (IDN) — The Indian Navy’s latest guided missile stealth frigate, INS Tushil, recenrly called in South Africa while on her maiden voyage home from Russia. […]
Sri Lanka: Facades of Independence and Masks of Conquest
Of ‘GLADIO’ Operations, Raj Nostalgia History and Literary Festivals By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake* COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 3 February 2025 (IDN) — Independence has been a long mirage in geostrategic Ceylon / Sri Lanka, where history seems to repeat itself as tragedy and farce in equal measure. This week, the geostrategic Indian Ocean island is set […]
Why the World Needs to Listen to Mahatma Gandhi More Than Ever
By Sachin Pilot The writer is former Union Minister of Corporate Affairs and current president of Rajasthan a Congress Committee in the Indian State of Rajasthan. TONK, Rajasthan, India | 31 January 2025 (IDN) — Why should we remember Mahatma Gandhi 77 years after he was assassinated? Because more than ever, his legacy is of […]
India Takes Yet Another Step Toward Sending Humans to the Moon
By Devinder Kumar* NEW DELHI | 17 January 2025 (IDN) — The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)—which has been working on key technologies to realise its vision of setting up a space station by 2035 and sending humans to the Moon by 2040—on January 16 morning successfully demonstrated space docking, or the joining of two […]
Sri Lanka: Better Manage the Water Tanks to Ensure Food Security
By Mohan Seneviratne* COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 16 January 2025 (IDN) — Water is at the centre of economic and social development. It influences whether communities are healthy places to live, whether farmers can grow food and underpins natural ecosystems. Moreover, humans experience Climate Change through water be it floods, droughts, cyclones or tsunamis. Sri […]
Empowering Indian Street Vendors to Transition from Single-use Plastics
By Satyarupa Shekhar and Om Prakash Singh* NEW DELHI | 14 December 2024 (IDN) — With the intergovernmental negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty now over, it is opportune to discuss India’s approach to plastic pollution. The single-use plastic ban (SUP ban) by the Indian government came into effect from 1 July 2022. What the country needed […]
Sri Lanka: The IMF’s Remarkable Timing and a President’s Mandate for Debt Justice
By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake* COLOMBO | 30 November 2024 (IDN) — At Annual Meetings in Washington in October, International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva claimed Sri Lanka as a debt restructuring ‘success’ story.[i] Left unsaid was that Sri Lanka’s external debt had ballooned from $26 billion to a purported whopping $100 billion during two years of […]
Behind a Surge in India-Russia Economic Relations
By Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash* NEW DELHI | 16 November 2024 (IDN) — In the past decade, the core drivers of India-Russia relations have begun shifting. The traditionally dominant military-technical partnership has declined, with India buying less Russian weapons, technology and military platforms. The economic pillar stagnated as military dealings slowed, with bilateral trade hovering around […]
Sri Lanka: Daunting Foreign Policy Options for a New Administration — Part 1
By Dr Palitha Kohona Former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, and more recently, Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 6 November 2024 (IDN) — In the nineteenth century, the GREAT GAME was played by two global powers among the soaring peaks and stunning valleys of […]