In Focus by The Hindu

Ukraine and the US have jointly proposed a 30-day ceasefire deal to Russia. They reached an agreement following a meeting between Ukrainian and American officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to the ceasefire proposal with caution. He has said that he agrees with it in principle but any ceasefire offer must address the root causes of the ‘crisis’.So, what does the ceasefire deal offer Russia and Ukraine? Will Russia agree to this ceasefire proposal in the coming days? And what are the likely key sticking points that could come in the way of a deal?Guest: Stanly Johny, The Hindu’s International Affairs Editor. Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump administration’s trans-Atlantic policy has made a sharp break from that of the Biden administration, and in fact, from the entire post-World War II paradigm where the US was the prime guarantor of European security. Three quick, successive developments have underscored this departure.First came US Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, where he said that the biggest threat to Europe’s security is “from within”. Second, the very public spat between Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, after which President Donald Trump announced that the US was pausing military and intelligence aid to Ukraine. Finally, Zelenskyy buckling under the pressure, and agreeing to a US-sponsored offer of a 30-day ceasefire deal with Russia.All these developments have made it clear that Europe will need to completely rethink its security-related assumptions that governed its relationship with the US under a capacious NATO umbrella.Is the trans-Atlantic alliance due for a comprehensive reset? Can Europe continue to outsource its security needs to the US, or does it need to mobilise more actively to achieve self-reliance? What adjustments does Europe need to make, and what kind of a security architecture does Europe need to work towards?Guest: Marta Mucznik, Senior EU Analyst, Advocacy & Research, International Crisis Group, Brussels.Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States is India’s biggest trading partner. In 2023, the U.S.-India bilateral trade in goods and services stood at $190.08 billion -- $123.89 billion in goods and $66.19 billion in services trade. 17.7% of India’s exports are to the US.In 2024, India enjoyed a goods trade surplus to the tune of $45.7 billion. American exports into India also face a higher rate of tariffs than India’s exports to the US. Now President Donald Trump has said that the US will mirror Indian tariffs from April 2. This means tariffs on Indian goods will increase substantially.If this does happen, how will it affect Indian industry? Should India get into a trade war or pre-emptively lower its tariffs on US goods? More critically, what are the implications of reciprocal tariffs for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – is the US getting out of WTO?Guest: economist Neeraj Kaushal, Professor at the School of Social Work, Columbia University.Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Indian rupee is on a downward trend. It logged its fifth straight monthly fall in February, weighed down by foreign portfolio outflows and increased hedging in the onshore and the non-deliverable forward market. Persistent outflows from the stock markets have also hit the rupee. Foreign investors have net sold over $14 billion worth of Indian stocks so far in 2025, playing a role in making the rupee one of Asia's worst-performing currencies.The Reserve Bank of India has a mandate to address the volatility of the Rupee. It has intervened in the markets periodically to slow down the slide. It has many tools to do so. On February 28, the RBI conducted a dollar-rupee buy/sell swap auction for $10 billion with a three-year tenor. The auction was oversubscribed 1.62 times. A Reuters poll shows that analysts expect the rupee to weaken to 87.63 in six months. It suggests that sluggish economic growth, uncertainty over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff, and the rising possibility of a global trade war have hit foreign investors' demand for Indian financial assets.What can we expect the RBI to do? How does the RBI decide to intervene in the market? How is this volatility different from the volatile periods we’ve seen before? What’s the greater impact of this on our economy?Guest: Smita Roy Trivedi, Associate Professor, National Institute of Bank Management, Pune (the views expressed are strictly personal)Host: Nivedita VEdited by Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this week, the United States recorded its first death due to measles after over 10 years. Why is this significant? The US had declared the eradication of measles, a highly infectious viral disease, from its country in the year 2000. Over 150 people, mostly children, are currently ill in Texas, and the outbreak has now spread to other States, as per US news reports. In Texas, all but 5 cases were in people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. The country’s Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has a history of debunking vaccines, has now said that vaccines protect individual children and the community as a whole.Why is one of the most vaccine-preventable diseases surging in a developed country? Is vaccine misinformation becoming a serious public health crisis? What is the situation in India like?Guest: Dr. Rajib Dasgupta, professor of community health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New DelhiHost: Zubeda HamidEdited by Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) has released documents showing that some voters in West Bengal have the same EPIC numbers as some voters in states like Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab. The elector photo identity card (EPIC) is a unique number, and the fact that it is unique is critical to avoid voter impersonation or other kinds of fraud.The Election Commission has attributed the duplication of EPIC numbers to a manual, decentralised system of allotting EPIC system that predated the current electoral database platform called ERONET. But the TMC and other critics are not convinced by this explanation, and the EC’s own rules state that EPIC cards and numbers can only be issued to those on the electoral roll of a constituency, and can only be issued online, not manually.So, how then was EPIC number issued manually? How did a voter from Gujarat constituency, who was not from a Bengal constituency, have the same alphabets in his EPIC number as someone who was from Bengal constituency? How robust is our existing system for registering new voters and deleting voters from electoral rolls?Guest: MG Devasahayam, Coordinator, Citizens Commission on Elections.Host: G Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Jude Francis Weston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In the three years since, the US and Europe rallied around Ukraine, supplying it with military and financial support to take on the Russians. Russia was also placed under severe economic sanctions.Russia, when it began its ‘special military operation’, may have hoped for a quick resolution by forcing Ukraine to the negotiating table. But the conflict dragged on, and as of today, Russia holds 20% of Ukrainian territory, and for the first time, the US has turned ‘neutral’ in the conflict. President Donald Trump has also made it clear to Ukraine that joining NATO is no longer on the table. At the same time, he has also said that the war could end in a matter of weeks.What does the present conjuncture mean for Ukraine – which has paid the highest cost, in terms of lives lost, economic losses, and loss of territory? Can the US and Russia sit together and negotiate the end of the conflict, without Ukraine and Europe having a say? What lessons does this conflict hold for smaller countries caught in a proxy conflict between super-powers?Guest: Stanly Johny, The Hindu’s International Affairs Editor. Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chandrakant Lahariya, a seasoned global health expert with significant experience at WHO and UNICEF, dives into the troubling U.S. withdrawal from the WHO and the ramifications for global health funding. He discusses the likely destabilization of health services in low-income countries. Lahariya also addresses the critical implications of the USAID suspension, affecting vital health programs like HIV/AIDS and vaccinations. He poses challenging questions about the world's reliance on U.S. contributions and the urgent need for other countries to step up.

The doping controversy over world no. 1 Jannik Sinner has divided the tennis world. In March 2024, Sinner tested positive for clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid. As per the rules of the International Tennis Integrity Agency and the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC), this would result in an automatic provisional suspension pending an appeal. Sinner, however, appealed the provisional suspension, and an independent hearing convened by the ITIA found that he bore “no fault or negligence” for the positive tests. Subsequently, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed this ruling. WADA’s appeal was supposed to have come up for hearing at the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) on April 16-17, 2025. But now the WADA appeal will not be heard because Sinner and WADA have reached a case resolution agreement. Under this settlement, instead of the one to two-year ban that WADA had wanted, Sinner will serve out a three-month ban, from February 9 to May 4. This means he will not miss any Grand Slams, despite committing a doping offence that, in the case of other players, has caused them to serve out a ban of one to several years.Is tennis’s anti-doping process “broken” as the likes of Stan Wawrinka and Nick Kyrgios have said? Are there double standards in this process - with top players benefiting while the lower ranked players don’t get the same treatment or benefit of doubt? How transparent is a process where a player can negotiate a “settlement” for a doping offence? Guest: N Sudarshan from The Hindu’s Sports Bureau. Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made a spectacular entry into Delhi politics in 2013. It rode the wave of an anti-corruption movement, and connected with Delhi’s middle classes by positioning itself as an anti-political force. It cashed in on a general disgust with self-serving career politicians. Once in power, it built a formidable support base on the back of welfare initiatives in school education, health, electricity, water supply, and free bus rides for women.Now, after nearly a decade in power, it has been voted out. The BJP is back in power at the assembly level in Delhi after a gap of 26 years. It won 48 seats while AAP’s seat share plummeted from 62 to 22 seats. Analysts have blamed anti-incumbency and the AAP’s governance failure for its loss. They have also blamed the corruption allegations against Kejriwal, his excessive spending on the Chief Minister’s official residence, the alleged liquor scam, and so on.But some basic questions remain: Did the AAP lose because the BJP out-promised it on the welfare front? On the corruption aspect: did it lose because it was perceived as more corrupt than its rivals, or because it is held to a higher stand of probity given its provenance in anti-corruption movement? Does the AAP really need an ideological core if it needs to survive, as some are arguing? And what does this outcome mean for the ‘alternative politics’ that the AAP had promised? Guest: Professor KK Kailash from the Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad.Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.Edited by Sharmada Venkatasubramanian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices