Counterview

Counterview News   Four years after world governments pledged to align global financial flows with nature conservation goals, a comprehensive new assessment reveals that major financial jurisdictions have largely failed to translate these commitments into binding rules. As a result, banks and investors remain largely free to finance deforestation and ecosystem destruction .

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  A report commissioned by Heineken on The Future Role of Bars in Europe, published in October 2026, found that young people go to bars and pubs to build social lives around food and coffee, not alcohol. They go to meet friends and family. This is not a minor shift in taste. It is part of a wider generational rejection of the commodity culture on which capitalism depends.

Counterview News    A new report reveals that the modern workplace has fallen into a "workaround economy," where employees are increasingly bypassing official company software to piece together their own tech stacks, driven by fragmented systems and mounting cognitive overload. According to the study conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of AI productivity platform Superhuman, 75% of professionals now operate outside of fully approved tool stacks, relying on a mix of company-provided and personally selected applications to get their jobs done. The survey of 1,505 professionals highlights a growing crisis in enterprise technology: while workers remain optimistic about their tools, the friction of moving work across disconnected systems is forcing them into unofficial, often insecure, habits.

Counterview News  The global race for artificial intelligence dominance is not just about computing power or capital; it is fundamentally about human capability. According to the newly released Global Skills Report 2026 by Coursera and Udemy , a stark "readiness disconnect" is threatening to derail global AI investments, with the report revealing that 88% of leaders believe their planned AI investments will fail without greater investment in human skills training.

By Rajiv Shah  A new report published by the international research and advocacy organization GRAIN has warned that the global resurgence of biofuels is triggering a dangerous dynamic of “more fuel, less food, more land grabs.” Driven by intersecting energy security concerns, geopolitical tensions, and aggressive decarbonization mandates, the expanding agrofuel industry is increasingly pitting corporate energy interests against global food security and indigenous land rights. 

By Raj Kumar Sinha*  The ordinary consumer has to pay the price for the mismanagement of electricity companies. Consumers in Madhya Pradesh, already troubled by expensive electricity, now face a possible additional burden of 10 percent. This is reportedly linked to the draft rules being prepared by the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission for the next five-year retail tariff period, to take effect from April 1.

By A Representative   Top human rights organisation, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has taken strong exception to the arrest of Dalit activist Laxman Naik and doctor and human rights supporter Dr. Randall Sequeira, who were detained in Odisha’s Bhawanipatna on October 16 for their alleged involvement in protests against Vedanta Ltd.’s proposed bauxite mining project in the Sijimali hills.

Counterview News   The world’s largest banks and investors are continuing to finance companies responsible for tropical deforestation, ecosystem destruction, and human rights abuses, according to a major new report released by the Forests & Finance coalition. The findings highlight a stark accountability gap in the global financial sector, even as international governments prepare to review critical biodiversity goals.

By Rajiv Shah    European banks that helped shut down Adani ’s Galilee Basin coal frontier in Australia a decade ago are now bankrolling a far larger coal expansion just 150 kilometres away, according to a new report from Reclaim Finance and partner NGOs. The study , "Coal Hypocrisy: European Banks’ Double Standard on Thermal and Metallurgical Coal in Australia", finds that 19 European banks provided US$30.3 billion to companies planning metallurgical coal expansion in Queensland’s Bowen Basin between 2021 and 2025, out of a total of US$105.9 billion from international banks.

Counterview News   As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded their Annual Meetings in Bangkok this week, civil society groups and policy experts outside the official proceedings released two critical documents challenging the institutions' legacy and prescriptions for Asia, calling for a fundamental overhaul of the global financial architecture.

By Bharat Dogra  In September 2026, the Supreme Court of India did not mince words. Observing the exorbitant pricing and profit margins on essential medicines—where patients were being charged up to nine times the normal rate for life-saving cancer drugs—the court described the practice as “rampage, carnage, and broad daylight dacoity.” 

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  The worldwide horrors of war, conflict, injustice, exploitation, marginalisation, inequality and everyday violence and brutality on a mass scale are designed to numb people, eroding their civilised, humane self-confidence and their trust in each other. The aim of these manufactured crises and shocks is to shape a society in which individuals become ever lonelier and more vulnerable — in the name of personal space and individual freedom.

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  The American Dream was popularized by historian James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America  (1931), during the Great Depression, when American corporate profits fell from 2.8 billion in 1929 to −2.6 billion in 1930. Even this decline created significant social and economic strain for working people. Corporations cut costs and restructured their operations to survive, but unemployment reached 25% by 1933, leaving millions in poverty. 

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  Policymakers in higher education, the majority of university leaders, and managers—Vice Chancellors, Deans, and Heads of Departments—are neither trained to conduct research nor qualified to teach. Yet they frame policies for learning and teaching, research strategies, and norms for ranking institutions, teacher performance, and research outputs. They evaluate impacts they scarcely understand.

By Saurabh Thakore*  The coffee is warm. The marble beneath it is cool. By the time we settle into the morning, someone else's work is already holding our day together. The floor is clean. The entrance is attended. The lift is running. Beyond the window, buildings rise above roads carrying people towards offices, factories, hospitals and schools. For a moment, everything feels effortless. It is easy to begin the day without thinking about how it became ready, or whose hands made the room possible.

By Tings Chak   At the entrance to Xingfuli, a residential compound in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, a bulletin board displays the names, photographs, and phone numbers of the people responsible for managing the neighbourhood. Though an ordinary bulletin board at first appearance, among the building representatives and Communist Party members is an unexpected name: Kang Jiafei, a food delivery worker who is also listed as a community ‘grid worker.’

Counterview News   A groundbreaking new meta-analysis published in the journal Family Medicine and Community Health has provided some of the most comprehensive evidence to date linking the consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) to a wide array of chronic diseases and premature death. The study , led by Dr. Xiao Liu and colleagues from institutions including Sun Yat-sen University and Duke-NUS Medical School, analyzed data from 51 prospective cohort studies involving nearly 8.82 million adults across 51 different cohorts.

Counterview News   A randomized controlled trial published in the journal Nature Metabolism has found that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) trigger metabolic and neural responses distinct from minimally processed foods—even when the two meals are nutritionally identical. The study provides direct experimental evidence that food processing itself influences health through mechanisms beyond calories and macronutrients alone.

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  The policies of the Modi government, shaped by the Hindutva ideology of the RSS and its engagement with right-wing politics and crony capitalist projects, have created conditions that enable figures like Elon Musk to comment on Indian affairs by calling Mukesh Ambani the unelected Prime Minister of India. 

By Md. Abu Saim*  The United States' federal debt has crossed $40 trillion. The number is almost impossible to comprehend. To put it in perspective, it equates to roughly $117,000 per American—and it would take nearly 110,000 years to repay at $1 million per day.