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"I’ve been looking for answers/I’ve been looking for clues/I couldn’t find it in the paper/Couldn’t find it in the news/Oh there’s poison in the water/Oh there are toxins in the air/Oh it’s got us fighting over nothing/Whoever’s up there doesn’t care…." These are lyrics of a song sung blue by a singer called Aaron Stephens and it fits Arvind Kejriwal’s charge of the Haryana government poisoning the Yamuna water like a glove.

Nepal has decided to hike the permit fees to climb Mount Everest. It will certainly boost Nepal's revenues. Yet it raises the question about the ethics of commercialisation of scaling one of the world's most revered natural wonders. Issues pertaining to sustainability and overcrowding come up in the wake of the decision of increasing the permit fees. It has been upped from $11,000 to $15,000 during peak season. For Nepal, the economic stakes are significant.

Narendra Modi government is due to present its second budget in the third term of the Modi regime on February 1 in an environment of domestic downturn in GDP growth along with global uncertainty in trade due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s disruptive trade and tariff programme.

The Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has brought down the market crashing, but it has done even more damaging things to the United States. Apart from challenging Silicon Valley’s technology dominance, the Chinese have exposed the limits of Trump’s tariffs, challenging Washington’s ability to restrain China’s technological advance.

As India awaits the presentation of the Union Budget 2025-26, the defence sector is poised at a crucial juncture. Building on the foundation laid in the previous year, the 2025-26 budget needs to navigate the complexities of evolving security challenges while sustaining the momentum towards self-reliance and modernization. This delicate balancing act will determine the trajectory of India's defence capabilities for years to come.

Is it not a joke to expect a Member of Parliament to read, understand, give a considered view with qualitative comment on 655-pages-long final draft report on an important legislative amendment bill, such as the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, within a few hours, which was circulated to members less than 24 hours before the final meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)?

Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav woke up Wednesday to a great possibility. A stampede at the Mahakumbh! Similar to the one in 2013, when the 'Kumbh' 12 years ago, had been similarly met with a stampede and 36 'shradalus' were stomped to death, their last breath escaping into the Triveni-Sangam, final absolution!

LONDON: History may have been made this week when, for the first time, a Chinese technological development had the effect of wiping at least a trillion dollars off corporate values on the US stock market.

Winning Delhi assembly election is certainly crucial for AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, but a triumph for Narendra Modi is more vital, virtually of the nature of do and die, than a win for Kejriwal. By winning the election, Kejriwal would become the chief minister of Delhi for the fourth time, his stature will grow among the opposition leaders, but BJP winning the election will empower Modi and project him as the supreme leader of the Saffron ecosystem. With Delhi win by Modi, Mohan Bhagwat cannot think of challenging him and his authority. True enough, RSS will have to act as second fiddle.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Nothing seems to be going right for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Kerala. The party is set to suffer a twin setback with an open revolt in Palakkad municipality under its control, and the threat by its ally, the Bharat Dharma Jana Sen (BDJS) to quit the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).