The average Indian worker must labour for an extraordinary 160 full working days to afford Apple's latest iPhone 17 Pro.
The core dilemma remains: Why provide further stimulus to an economy that is already booming at an 8 per cent growth rate? asks Rajeswari Sengupta.
When players select themselves, the selectors' job becomes delightfully simple. But did the Indian selectors have that luxury while picking the T20 World Cup squad for the 2026 T20 World Cup? asks K R Nayar.
Arshdeep Singh -- statement spells against SA shows need to give pacer consistent ODI outings
Largecap companies are generally less vulnerable to economic slowdowns than their mid- and smallcap counterparts.
Study abroad experts explain how Canada, Australia, Germany, France and Dubai are redefining global education.
As the year draws to a close, Rediff's Senior Contributor Roshmila Bhattacharya takes a look at the hits and misses, the highs and lows, the newsmakers and the dealbreakers in alphabetical order.
United States President Donald Trump on Friday announced that his administration will impose a 100 per cent tariff on branded and patented pharmaceutical products beginning October 1, 2025, unless the manufacturing companies are building production facilities in the US.
'There will be not less than 31 lakh people working in the census process.'
Satyajit Ray anticipated the issues we are only now starting to raise, long before large language models, AI chatbots, predictive algorithms, and autonomous systems began to control every bit of our lifestyles, notes Atanu Biswas.
Capital investment by the private sector is likely to rise 21.5 per cent to Rs 2.67 lakh crore in 2025-26 aided by robust macroeconomic fundamentals, and a 100-bps policy rate cut, according to an RBI article. Despite global uncertainties, Indian firms entered the 2025-26 fiscal year with healthier balance sheets, higher cash buffer, improved profitability, and greater access to diversified funding sources, said the article 'Private Corporate Investment: Growth in 2024-25 and Outlook for 2025-26' published in the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) August bulletin.
'10 million Indians are currently living with dementia, and the number is expected to double by 2036.'
'The chief minister believes the poorest of the poor have the first right on government resources.'
'If the NDA returns with the BJP substantially ahead of the JD-U, a BJP CM bid becomes plausible; if the gap is narrow or JD-U holds pivotal seats, continuity with Nitish is the lower-risk option.'
'Geopolitically and diplomatically it's a very difficult situation for India.'
On his 200th birth anniversary, Utkarsh Mishra traces the life, thought, and legacy of Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India.
'It is for the first time in Independent India that collection of information on caste is being done.'
Generative AI is transforming workplaces but at a cost -- there are fewer jobs for young workers just entering the workforce, reveals a Goldman Sachs report.
When the government chooses to either ignore or use identity documents only when it suits them, it shakes people's sense of stability, notes Shyam G Menon.
Here's wishing the OG 'Captain Fantastic' a very Happy Birthday.
When the government chooses to either ignore or use identity documents only when it suits them, it shakes people's sense of stability, notes Shyam G Menon.
'That way you're not hostage just to US sort of exports to India.'
Through history, the Mela has held different meanings for ascetics, the colonised, colonisers, and tourists, but all have been moved by its grandeur points out Atanu Biswas.
In 2025 alone, at least 50 suicides linked to online gambling losses have been reported across India. According to FIRs, the victims were addicted to betting, largely driven by cricket, rummy and poker.
This isn't just a Test match - it's a test of Shubman Gill's leadership, temperament, and decision-making.
'For the first time in this country, perhaps the first time anywhere, we are going to use backwardness index.' 'It is a fundamental shift in the discourse in the country's social justice.'
A new report, "India Justice Report 2025", highlights the stark gender disparity in India's police force, with less than 1,000 women holding senior positions like Director-Generals and Superintendents of Police. Despite growing awareness about the need for gender diversity in law enforcement, not a single state or Union Territory has met its target for women's representation in the police force. The report also emphasizes the significant challenges faced by the justice system as a whole, including infrastructural deficiencies, overcrowding in prisons, and inadequate staffing levels. The report calls for systemic reforms to address these issues and ensure a more equitable and accessible justice system for all.
Ajit Balakrishnan on the surprising drivers of mathematical innovation.
The government's initiative to migrate SEZ data from NSDL software to ICEGATE system for streamlined reporting of import data caused double counting of gold imports, resulting in inflated figures and the issue has now been largely rectified, government sources said. The downward revision has provided the actual picture of trade deficit (difference between imports and exports), which was earlier looking very high. The deficit for November will now be revised downwards from $37.84 billion to about $32.8 billion. Similarly, there will be a revision in overall import numbers as well.
'You've got to understand it is not easy to die by suicide.' 'People commit suicide only when they lose everything and find no other way to live.'
'What is going on is the under counting of the migration population in urban areas.' 'It has been going on in the last few censuses.'
'One of the big findings is that younger men seem to have shifted towards the Republican Party.' 'In 2020, about 23% of younger men said they would vote Trump.' 'Now that number is 48%.' 'It is like a 25 point shift, and you don't actually see shifts that big in surveys.'
The metro, it seems, is politics-proof -- even if it comes at a high cost.
Isn't there something significant in the UPI example for all of us to learn from and execute to enable world-scale success for our startups?, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
India Ratings on Thursday said that any broad-based or strong recovery in corporate capital expenditure was unlikely in the upcoming financial year 2026 (FY26) due to uncertainty of domestic and external demand. The uncertainty is adversely affecting the overall corporate sector capex. Interest rates on credit are not the primary deterrent to decisions about capital expenditure, said Soumyajit Niyogi, director, core analytical group, Ind-Ra, in a webinar on the credit market outlook.
There are challenges galore before him, and it is not going to be easy. In the next four years, he has to conjure a system that changes the optics about him and the BJP both nationally and internationally so that he can ride back on his own, claim the top slot, and not have to lean on a coalition, asserts Ramesh Menon as Modi 3.0 completes a year in power.
The TMC-led West Bengal government has already started laying the groundwork for the election, setting the tone with the recent Bengal Global Business Summit and the state Budget.
'Peninsular Indians could ask 'Why should we contribute half of India's tax revenues if we account for only a quarter of the seats in the Lok Sabha?'.' 'The rest of the country seems likely to counter that 'democracy means one vote per person irrespective of where that person resides in India'.' 'With no easy answers to this thorny debate, the south's economic ascendancy could end up creating a Hobson's choice.' A revealing excerpt from Nandita Rajhansa and Saurabh Mukherjea's book, Behold the Leviathan: The Unusual Rise of Modern India.
As a well-wisher of the Indian Statistical System and part of the system for more than 37 years, Sunil K Sinha, former DG and CEO of NSSO, offers suggestions to improve data quality.
While data can empower communities, it reinforces identities, making local politics more caste-centric, with decisions increasingly contested on the grounds of representation.
Such dynamics could lead to shifting alliances and, in the worst case, local governance getting paralysed as each group demands proportional power-sharing, explain Amitabh Kundu and Mehebub Rahaman.
