India missed a chance to reform the Public Distribution System
While saving food-subsidy cost on the erstwhile PMGKY, the government also decided to forgo the token prices collected from NFSA beneficiaries.
Farm to fork: Let digital technology lead sustainability
Digital technology can add value across the farm-to-fork chain but low adoption, small land holdings and the concentration of risks with farmers are some of the challenges we must surmount.
Academic liberty is an Ivy League must-have
Higher education opened to foreign universities is welcome but academic freedom is key and India will have to rely on its very own institutions to emerge globally as a land of learning
Sri Lanka today is like a postcard from another time
From a distance, it looked like a large scarecrow had inexplicably washed up on Bentota beach in southern Sri Lanka
With VLCC, Vandana Luthra blazed a trail for a generation of women entrepreneurs
Repeated failures to go public may be the reason why Vandana Luthra chose the private equity route to cash out and sold a dominant stake to Carlyle.
Mint Explainer: West sending tanks to Ukraine is calculated risk tolerance
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz likely views sending tanks as a provocative step, a point of no return.
Fix those inverted duty structures to lift exports
Such dampeners of global commerce must be eliminated for India to become a factory to the world in a period of high flux and these reforms should be an explicit part of our next budget
India’s e-bus adoption ambitions require a financially sound plan
State transport corporations are in poor shape and so the Centre must open up financing pathways
Online platforms may have to rethink their parity deals
Expect closer scrutiny this year of ‘most favoured nation’ clauses under the country’s competition law
Glued to handsets
Indians spent 4.9 hours daily on their smartphones in 2022, placing India among the world’s top 10 countries with the most time spent on handsets
America’s missing ambassador to India is straining bilateral ties
Given India’s strategic importance, why has the White House left the ambassador position vacant for two years?
The Tesla-versus-BYD rivalry is far fuzzier than it may seem
Unlike the traditional auto industry, where all cars were just four-wheeled gas-guzzlers with varying sizes of engines, EVs present a much more differentiated case.
Big demand in China for India-made Covid meds: A tribute and a warning
Indian drug makers should not try to circumvent the terms under which they have obtained the licence to manufacture a version of Paxlovid.
Mint Explainer: Are Japan and the UK in a 'quasi-alliance'?
Japan has signed a major defence pact with the UK, the first such treaty it has signed with a European country.