Counterview

By Anirban Bhattacharya   Financial inclusion cannot be measured by the number of loans disbursed. It cannot be measured merely by opening bank accounts or through digitisation alone. Nor can it be achieved in the name of "efficiency" by shrinking bank branches and replacing employees with Banking Correspondents.

By Saade Reckleben*    Ladakh is a high-altitude desert region with a population of around 300,000. According to available demographic estimates, about 47% of its residents are Muslims, 40% are Buddhists, and around 12% are Hindus. Nearly 97% of the population belongs to Scheduled Tribe communities.

By A Representative   Representatives of women's rights organisations, feminist groups, secular political parties and civil society organisations gathered in Hyderabad on Saturday to demand the immediate implementation of the Women's Reservation Act, 2023, without linking it to the Census or the delimitation process. The public consultation, organised by women's rights and feminist organisations of Telangana in solidarity with the National Coalition for Women's Reservation (NCWR), drew around 100 participants at Maqdoom Bhavan in Himayatnagar.

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan   Visit any public place—a railway station, petrol pump, government office, or simply open a newspaper—and the Prime Minister's image is almost impossible to miss. Government advertisements have become a ubiquitous feature of India's public landscape, appearing across television screens, radio broadcasts, newspapers, digital platforms, and outdoor hoardings. While governments have a legitimate responsibility to inform citizens about policies and welfare schemes, the scale and nature of such publicity campaigns have raised an important question: should taxpayer money be used primarily for public information or for political image-building?

By Harsh Thakor*  K. Mohan Ram’s "Maoism in India", published in 1971 in the immediate aftermath of the Naxalbari uprising and the formation of the CPI(ML), remains one of the earliest systematic attempts to historically and ideologically map the emergence of Maoism in India. Written at a moment of intense political flux, the book offers a detailed examination of the forces, debates, and contradictions that shaped the early Maoist movement, while situating it within the broader trajectory of Indian communism.

By Ravi Ranjan*  At the centre of every civilisation stands a dangerous illusion: that life’s true vitality resides only where human presence is dense—cities, markets, institutions, and the monumental architectures of progress. Modernity has trained us to believe that visibility equals value, that noise equals life, and that the centre alone is fertile. Yet the more closely we look, the more this belief collapses. Life’s deepest pulse often beats not at the centre but at the margins—those quiet, neglected, seemingly barren spaces where human attention rarely lingers.