By A Representative   The Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) has cautioned that India’s latest free trade agreement risks widening regional inequality, arguing that export growth remains concentrated in a small number of states despite rising national figures.

By Nandita Lal   The India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is expected to be implemented in the first half of 2026. India’s journey with trade deals slowed down in the 2000s after past agreements backfired. But now, in 2025, it’s rushing into new talks with the US, UK, and EU, despite the cautionary history. Alarmingly, the warnings from rights groups in both the UK and India have been largely ignored by the press.

By Harasankar Adhikari  In 2011, after three decades of uninterrupted Left Front rule, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) came to power in West Bengal under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. Many voters, weary of a long period of political stagnation and perceived cadreism, hoped the new government would offer a more responsive and accountable administration. The expectation was that the transition would bring peace, transparency and a break from entrenched structures of party control.

By Nazifa Jannat*  Recent protests organized by the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) in Bangladesh highlight public concern about reports of possible Bangladeshi involvement in a proposed “ Gaza International Stabilization Force” (ISF). These protests reflect anxieties over the nature and purpose of the initiative at a time when Gaza continues to face extensive destruction, displacement, and humanitarian crisis. The PSC argues that participation would be inappropriate given the stated goals of the force and current conditions on the ground.

By Vijay Prashad   Iran is in turmoil. Across the country, there have been protests of different magnitudes, with violence on the increase with both protesters and police finding themselves in the morgue. What began as work stoppages and inflation protests drew together a range of discontent, with women and young people frustrated with a system unable to secure their livelihood. Iran has been under prolonged economic siege and has been attacked directly by Israel and the United States not only within its borders, but across West Asia (including in its diplomatic enclaves in Syria). This economic war waged by the United States has created the situation for this turmoil, but the turmoil itself is not directed at Washington but at the government in Tehran.

By Dae-Han Song   In a flagrant disregard for international law and national sovereignty, the Trump administration invaded and kidnapped Venezuela's President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Rather than being an isolated event, the increasing bravado of and remarks from President Donald Trump open the terrifying possibility that, if not opposed, Trump’s war machine will proliferate its aggressions, with next possible targets being Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia or Greenland . US hyperimperialism is dividing and unraveling the world at a time when we should be coming together to address our most existential crises.

By A Representative   A nationwide child-led advocacy group has called on the Union Government to ensure that the upcoming National Census captures data on children across three distinct age groups, arguing that the current system masks the realities of millions of adolescents.

By Prof. Hemantkumar Shah*  Iran today sits at a dangerous crossroads, and the question many are whispering, both inside and outside the country, is disarmingly simple: Is Allah the enemy of democracy? Yet the real target of that question is not God but the people who govern in His name. Iran’s political history since the 1979 Islamic Revolution offers haunting clues as to why this question even arises.

By Biljana Vankovska   The New Year did not begin with hope or joy, except for the arms dealers. More precisely, for the military-industrial-media-academic-NGO complex that feeds on permanent war. Orders are flowing, profits are booming, and blood has once again become a growth sector. For any normal society, pirates belong in adventure films, not in the civilian power corridor. Yet Venezuela, more precisely, its legally elected president Nicolás Maduro, became the first trophy of the New Year.