IN his latest Mann-ki-baat address on June 28, 2020, the prime minister expressed some extraordinary views on defence manufacturing and self-reliance before independence, since then, and he took office in 2014. His own words, as per the official transcript in English, were:  “Before independence, in the realm of the defence sector, our country was ahead of many countries in the world. There used to be a multitude of ordnance factories. Many countries that lagged behind us then, are ahead of us now.

AFTER the failed lockdown and rising numbers of Covid-19 cases, the Modi government, which declared an emergency under the Disaster Management Act, seems now to have given up. We are seeing rapidly rising numbers in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, which together have about 40 per cent of the new infections in the country.

IT is extraordinary that the current pandemic has not brought forth a wave of support for enhancing India's public health infrastructure. While a section (only a section, mind you) of the intellectual class, and some leading figures of industry and commerce, have expressed their support for the idea, the extent to which the idea has not caught the public imagination is truly surprising. Surprising because everywhere else in the world, public health has become a real demand, echoed widely by many sections of public opinion.Why is public health not yet a demand in India?

WITH the US walking out of the Open Skies Agreement, the US is signalling to the world that it intends to return to days of Pax Americana that existed post Second World War, when it was the sole possessor of nuclear weapons. It has already walked out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 under George Bush Junior, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) under Trump. The only nuclear arms control treaty that still remains in place, is New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which provides a rough limit and parity on the US and Russia’s nuclear arsenals.

THE horrific leak of Styrene vapour from the LG Polymers plant in Vizag in the early hours of May 7, 2020, causing at least 13 deaths and serious injuries to several hundreds of people near the plant, has revived memories of the Bhopal Gas Disaster in December 1984. Like in Bhopal, the LG plant was once in the city suburbs, but dense habitations had been allowed to come up in its vicinity. The Bhopal tragedy was of course far larger in scope and scale, as regards deaths and disabilities, including long-term effects on victims and on their children to come.