Ranvir Nayar, Author at Media India Group

Time for France to acknowledge its Muslim minority

October 26, 2020

French President Emmanuel Macron’s statements on relationship between Islam and French culture following the beheading of a French professor raise a storm in and outside France. The murder brings focus back on situation of Muslims, a sizeable minority in the country.

1.67 million deaths due to air pollution in India, says study

October 22, 2020

The first-ever State of Global Air 2020, a report on air pollution around the world prepared by US-based Health Effects Institute, says that long-term exposure to outdoor and household air pollution in India played a role in more than 1.67 million deaths from a variety of disease...

Stage set for battle of giants over India’s e-tail market

October 19, 2020

As Mukesh Ambani stitches series of deals to establish market leadership in India’s e-commerce and retail market, rivals, notably Amazon and Walmart, are not likely to stand by and watch.

Paswan’s death puts spanner in Nitish Kumar’s poll prospects

October 10, 2020

Union food minister Ramvilas Paswan’s death is bound to upset Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s calculations in upcoming assembly elections.

H1B Visa Ban: Time for Indian IT firms to move beyond low hanging fruits

October 8, 2020

For the last five quarters, the results of the Indian IT firms, key drivers of the country’s stock markets, have depended upon mood swings of the highly temperamental and unpredictable President of the United States Donald Trump. Ever since he began targeting the relatively sma...

London climate change meet on December 12 set to flop

October 1, 2020

2020 was supposed to have been a crucial milestone in the battle to save the climate. But like a familiar story, it is pretty much certain to be yet another washout. Five years ago, the famed meeting in Paris in December 2015 was also headed towards an embarrassing collapse. But ...

Google, Paytm spat a precursor to several more

September 22, 2020

On September 19, Google suddenly removed from its Play Store the online payment application, Paytm, country’s largest digital payments company, citing breach of its anti-gambling policy. It also dropped Paytm fantasy gaming app, Paytm Games First, hours before start of the firs...

Why India should not rush into a free trade deal with UK or EU

September 15, 2020

Last week the UK and Japan announced that they had reached a bilateral free trade agreement that would govern their trade ties from the year 2020 when the UK completed its exit from the European Union and hence also exited the ambit of the EU-Japan trade pact. Both the countries ...

Pollution spikes as governments shift focus from ecology to economy

September 8, 2020

Euphoria over clean environment during lockdown is replaced with despair as pollution levels soar again & leaders look for economic recovery at all costs, especially cost of environment.

India-China Border Clashes: Outfoxed & cornered

September 1, 2020

After a brief honeymoon with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently failed to read Jinping and has frequently been caught off-guard by the Chinese leader. After a hiatus of six weeks following the first bloody clash between Indian and Chinese ...

India’s GDP meltdown: Unprecedented but not unforeseen

August 31, 2020

The only shock about India’s first quarter GDP numbers is the extent to which the economy has tanked. However, it may not be enough to shake Nirmala Sitharaman out of her stupor. Finally, the cat’s out of the bag. It’s official and on record. The catastrophic drop of 23.9 p...

India in a bind over US Presidential Elections 2020

August 27, 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s enthusiastic endorsement of President Donald Trump at the Howdy Modi event in Houston last year comes to haunt Indian diaspora in US with the nomination of Indian origin Senator Kamala Harris as Democratic Vice Presidential candidate for the US Pr...