Spiralling food prices

September's retail inflation, at 5.54%, an almost two-year high, marks the fourth consecutive month that price increases have kept headline CPI above the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) 4% target. The impact has been particularly severe for rural Indians, whose inflation rate reached 6.08%. Rural food inflation rose almost two percentage points between August and September, touching 8.06%. Onion (108.09%), garlic (54.62%) and ginger (62.85%) drove the surge, even as potato (-11.50%) and tomato (-8.62%) prices remained below year-earlier levels.

India's problem of overtreatment, overmedication

Modern medicine has never been more capable than it is today. Tests detect illness earlier, scans reveal invisible abnormalities, medicines prevent and treat diseases, and interventions and procedures can save lives within minutes. Yet, the same system that can do more is increasingly tempted to overtreat and overmedicate.

India-U.S. ties and the hurdle of American unilateralism

Have ties between India and the United States reached a breaking point? Where do they go from here? These and many other questions are being intensely debated following the U.S.'s announcement on October 8 that it had suspended the Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme for eight global IT companies, including some Indian-headquartered companies, accusing them of misusing immigration and labour-certification systems. The Indian companies named were Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, Cognizant and HCL.

What is preventive detention?

• Preventive detention allows authorities to detain a person to prevent anticipated threats to public order or security, but it must be distinguished from prohibitory orders and other police action against protesters

• Article 22 of the Constitution provides safeguards for detained persons, while laws such as the National Security Act set out the grounds and procedures for detention

India and Canada together contributing to prosperous, stable world: Modi to Carney

India and Canada are together contributing to a "more stable and prosperous world", said Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a call with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during which they agreed to conclude a trade agreement soon.

China says 'never recognised' U.T. of Ladakh; India hits back

India and China on Tuesday sparred over New Delhi's decision to standardise the names of 28 features in Ladakh, including some along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that had seen skirmishes between the Indian Army and the People's Liberation Army during a four-year stand-off.

BIMSTEC adopts 'Delhi Declaration' on terrorism

India hosted the first-ever meeting of the Home Ministers of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries on Tuesday, where the regional bloc adopted a declaration to counter radicalisation, vio-lent extremism conducive to terrorism, prevent the misuse of new and emerging technologies for terro-rist purposes, and tackle terrorist recruitment.

OPEC cuts India's 2026 oil demand growth forecast to 40,000 bpd

The Organisation of the Pe-troleum Exporting Coun-tries (OPEC) has lowered its forecast for India's oil demand growth in 2026 to 40,000 barrels per day (bpd), from 60,000 bpd projected in its September report. On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, India's oil de-mand is expected to rise by around 40,000 b/d to 5.7 million barrels per day (mbpd) in 2026, according to OPEC's latest monthly oil market report.

Rogue Al: deficient design?

More than 200 artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity researchers have called for immediate action to prevent further cases of Al models going rogue and posing a risk to critical infrastructure.

The letter signed by luminaries in the field including Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton and Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, called for models relating to cybersecurity to be physically cut off from the internet during testing.