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Kumbh Mela shadow: Activists raise alarm over severe chromium pollution in Nashik

  Just days before the sacred Dhvajarohan (flag hoisting) ceremony marking the commencement of Nashik's Simhastha Kumbh Mela , environmental activists and civil society groups have raised urgent alarms over severe industrial chemical contamination in Nashik’s water systems. They have accused state authorities of "institutional opacity" regarding the presence of Hexavalent Chromium [Cr(VI)]—a Group 1 human carcinogen —in local groundwater and river networks feeding the Godavari , with contamination levels recorded at over 1,000 times the permissible limit.
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Great tech rebellion? 75% workers bypassing company software: Report

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.

Is India losing the AI edge? Global Skills Report 2026 ranks nation 40th in workforce readiness

  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.

Grain vs. gasoline: How the global biofuel boom threatens India’s food and water security

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. 

Civil society at a crossroads: Service delivery vs. rights in the fight for social change

In the latest episode of the podcast Unmute , hosts Gagan Sethi and Minar Pimple convened a profound conversation with two veteran development practitioners to dissect a persistent tension within civil society: the perceived divide between service delivery and the struggle for rights. The episode, titled "Beyond Service Delivery: Civil Society, Rights, and the Politics of Social Change," featured Apoorva Oza , a development practitioner with decades of experience in rural development and institution-building, and Professor Dipa Sinha , a development economist known for her work on food, nutrition, gender, and social policy.

Peaceful dissent down under: Contrasting Australian and Indian responses to protest

The other day, I was speaking with my former colleague and friend, Neeraj Nanda, who is now settled in Melbourne, where he runs South Asia Times (SAT). We worked together in the early 1980s at Link Newsweekly, published from Link House in Delhi. Before that, we were active together in the All-India Students Federation (AISF), India's oldest student organisation.

European banks accused of coal double standard after shunning Adani’s Galilee mine in Australia

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.