The Supreme Court has accepted a new definition of what constitutes the Aravalli Hills, a mountain range that stretches across western India through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi, limiting it to elevations over 100 metres and grouping only those within 500 metres of each other as part of the range. By excluding most smaller hills from protection, the change opens the door to mining and construction, threatening forests, wildlife, groundwater, rainfall, and air quality.

A new research has found that a significant number of young adults in India are dying suddenly, most often due to undetected heart disease, even though many appear healthy and have no known medical conditions. What is concerning is that these deaths frequently occur at home or during routine activities, and in a large share of cases, even detailed autopsies fail to identify a clear cause, leaving families without answers and risks unaddressed.

India now has 917,000 US dollar millionaires, with 39,000 added in just one year, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025. This rise in high-net-worth individuals has occurred alongside a fall in average adult wealth, marking a sharp divide between visible gains at the top and economic stagnation across the broader population.

A U.K. government-commissioned study has found a skewed male-to-female birth ratio among Indian-origin families that exceeds even India’s national figures. This indicates that migrant Indian communities in Britain have retained, and in some cases reinforced, patriarchal cultural norms favouring sons over daughters.

India’s higher education sector has expanded steadily over the years, yet the benefits of this growth remain concentrated among those with social and economic privilege. For students from marginalised communities, entry into universities continues to be blocked by barriers that rarely make it into policy debates. In this interview, Manzer, a scholar working to bridge gaps in access, explains what keeps these students out of higher education, based on what he has observed while working closely with marginalised communities.

Across three major areas involving climate risk, press freedom and economic reporting, the government is steadily moving away from global benchmarks. It is discarding international assessments and building its own homegrown versions instead. These are managed or overseen by government bodies, which gives it more control over both the data and the story the data tells. The result is a system that does not just measure progress. It also quietly rewrites what progress is supposed to mean.

Malayalam actor Dileep has been acquitted in the 2017 case involving the abduction and sexual assault of a female actor. The verdict by a court in Kerala was based on the state’s failure to prove its own claims, not on any finding that cleared him of wrongdoing, and it stands as yet another example of how investigation and prosecution remain weak links in the justice system, especially in cases where the accused is powerful and influential.

Many people feel unhappy with how they look, and you may feel the same way. A new study shows that body dissatisfaction has become one of the most common psychological struggles among adolescents, and that these feelings during teenage years are strongly linked to eating disorder symptoms and depression in early adulthood.

Indians are consuming enough protein by the numbers, but much of it comes from poor-quality sources that do not meet the body’s nutritional needs, a pattern documented in recent dietary analysis by a national policy research body. This dietary imbalance is contributing to both childhood malnutrition and a growing epidemic of non-communicable diseases among adults.

Half of India’s population earns just 15 percent of the country’s total income, according to new findings from the World Inequality Report 2026. The top 10 percent, by contrast, take home nearly 58 percent of all income.

Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, accused India’s top election officials of collaborating in “vote theft” and warned that a future government would change the law to hold them accountable. Speaking in Parliament, he said, “We will change the law retrospectively, and we will come looking for you.”

People in Delhi and nearby areas are absorbing dangerous amounts of air pollution deep into their lungs every day, far beyond what Indian or global safety standards allow. A five-year study measured how much of this pollution actually settles inside the respiratory system, offering a clearer and more direct view of the damage being caused to people’s health.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has withdrawn all financial sanctioning powers from Ladakh’s local administration and elected councils, centralising them in Delhi. The move is likely to disrupt local decision-making and delay essential development in a region where planning and execution must match a narrow seasonal window.

The central government is weighing a proposal to require smartphone manufacturers to keep satellite-based location tracking permanently active on all devices sold in the country. This would allow law enforcement and investigative agencies to access our precise, real-time location data, a step no other country has taken so far.

Over the last five years, more than 6.5 million (65 lakh) children in India have dropped out of school, Minister of State for Women and Child Development Savitri Thakur revealed in Parliament. Among them, nearly 3 million (30 lakh) are adolescent girls. The numbers point to a large-scale rupture in India’s promise of universal education, and also to structural gaps in the way schooling is planned, supported and delivered, especially for children from marginalised families.

A group of former judges and senior advocates have denounced recent comments made by a Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi during a Supreme Court hearing on Rohingya refugees, calling the remarks “unconscionable” and contrary to constitutional values. In a public letter, the signatories said the comments dehumanised vulnerable refugees and undermined the moral authority of the judiciary.

Up to 10 million people in India need palliative care, yet fewer than 4% receive it, according to a new study. As a result, people with chronic and life-limiting illnesses such as cancer, heart disease or advanced neurological conditions are often left without the support they need to live their final days with comfort and dignity. They endure unmanaged pain and deep emotional distress.

In its 2025 Data Adequacy Assessment, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave India a ‘C’ grade for the quality of its national accounts and government finance data. In plain terms, that means the data has enough problems to make economic analysis tricky and sometimes unreliable.

As pollution levels in Delhi trigger emergency measures once again this December, the public is told the usual causes: crop burning, vehicle emissions and weather. But a far more persistent source of pollution continues throughout the year, worsens the crisis each winter, and is enabled by government policy. It comes from coal power plants operating within 300 kilometres of the city.