PM heads to France, announcement on civil nuclear cooperation on the cards

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is headed to Paris to co-chair the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit along with French President Emmanuel Macron. The summit is expected to announce a key outcome-a foundation that will look at Al in the public interest to cater to the needs of the Global South. India and France will likely make announcements on small modular reactors, boosting civil nuclear cooperation. An India-France Triangular Development Cooperation initiative is also likely to be launched. The two countries will declare that 2026 will be celebrated as India-France Innovation year, and launch a logo.

Macron and Modi will visit the city of Marseille and inaugurate an Indian consulate there.

MP dam project can submerge critical tiger corridor: NTCA

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has warned that the construction of the Morand-Ganjal Irrigation Project in Madhya Pradesh could submerge forested areas used by tigers to move between reserves and has strongly recommended exploring alternative sites, government records show.

The Environment Ministry's Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) discussed a proposal to divert 2,250.05 hectares of forest land for the project in a meeting. The project involves building two dams on the Morand and Ganjal rivers to improve irrigation in Hoshangabad, Betul, Harda, and Khandwa districts of the state. According to the project proposal, the construction of the dams and related infrastructure will displace 644 families, including 604 tribal families, who rely on the forest for their livelihood. Over seven lakh trees will be affected at full reservoir level, with 5.75 lakh trees marked for felling.

Aero India begins today, Rajnath says shows 'new India's strength'

A day ahead of the opening of Aero India in Bengaluru, Defence Minister said Sunday the 15th edition of the premier air show will be its biggest yet and showcase the strength of a "new India". Rajnath, who will inaugurate the defence exposition at the Yelahanka Air Force Station said at a press conference in Bengaluru that defence ministers or representatives from at least 30 nations will attend the event. Over 900 exhibitors, including 150 foreign companies and 90 countries will take part. Rajnath described Aero India as a crucial platform to drive the government's vision of a strong India. "Aero India is a platform that showcases the strength, resilience and self-reliance of new India... It will demonstrate our defence capabilities.

DHAKA MUST ACT

Six Months After Sheikh Hasina's ouster from power in Bangladesh and arrival in India following student-led protests, protesters reportedly demolished the homes of Awami League leaders and defaced murals of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 20-odd districts. The unrest began with a call for a "bulldozer procession" towards Mujib's residence, a symbol of the 1971 liberation, at Dhaka's 32 Dhanmondi Road. If peace and reconciliation are the Muhammad Yunus-led government's objectives, the destruction of Mujib's home risks alienating segments of the population who might otherwise be sympathetic towards the current dispensation. The interim government's equivocation on the violence - it has all but blamed Sheikh Hasina for it - is disturbing. A change of regime cannot erase a country's history, or the figures that stand tall.

A DIFFERENT WAY FORWARD

In the Early months of 2025, the spectre of mass layoffs has returned with a vengeance, casting a long shadow over professionals who had begun to believe in a post-pandemic era of stability. Big Tech - Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and even Google - has resumed cost-cutting measures, reversing the decline in layoffs seen in 2024. The message is clear: Corporate austerity is back, and with it, the erosion of work as a stable identity. In the shifting sands of the global economy, multiple factors drive this instability. The return of Donald Trump in the White House is already reshaping Silicon Valley. Tech leaders, wary of regulatory scrutiny and eager to align with the new administration's priorities, are cutting jobs in pursuit of leanness and efficiency. Meta's recent layoffs - affecting five per cent of its workforce - have been justified under the guise of eliminating "low performers", a move that coincides with Mark Zuckerberg's broader ideological shift towards workplace "masculine energy".

Budget's political priorities

The Economic Survey, presented a day earlier, was clear in its assessment of the challenges facing the Indian economy. The most important being the slowdown driven by stagnant or declining incomes. The survey also presented evidence that confirmed the decline in the in-comes of the self-employed, while for wage workers, it is now almost a decade of stagnant real wages. The nominal GDP growth is likely to be 10.1 per cent with inflation staying in the four-five per cent range. The growth of budgeted expenditure at 7.3 per cent is lower than the expected nominal GDP growth. Excluding interest payments, which are committed expenditure, growth in government spending is only 5.9 per cent, the same as last year. On the other hand, the Centre's gross as well as net tax revenue is projected to increase at 10.9 per cent in nominal terms. This is despite the massive Rs 1 lakh crore tax giveaway to the middle class. Clearly, far from being an expansionary budget, this is a conservative budget at a time when the government was expected to step up and expand fiscal spending to increase incomes across the board.

Bifurcating one of the highest revenue-generating zones of Railways: What will change?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the headquarters of South Coast Railway in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, the Union Cabinet gave the ex-post facto approval for the plan to create South Coast Railway Zone. The new railway zone has been created as per Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. It will be the 18th zone of the Indian Railways, whose jurisdiction has been carved out of the East Coast Railway and South Central Railway zones. The Cabinet also divided Waltair Railway Division, until now part of the East Coast Railway (ECOR), into two parts. One part has been renamed Visakhapatnam Railway Division under the South Coast Railway (SCOR), since Waltair "is a colonial legacy that needs to be changed," according to an official statement. As per item 8 of Schedule 13 (Infrastructure) of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, Indian Railways was required to examine establishing a new railway zone in the successor state of Andhra Pradesh. It was announced on February 27, 2019 that the Centre has decided to create a new railway division, which will be one of the strategic hubs for operations in Andhra Pradesh. The decision was taken to improve operational efficiency and provide focused service to the growing passenger and freight demands in the region.

Baltic states switch to European power grid, ending Russia ties

The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania completed a switch from Russia's electricity grid to the EU's system, severing Soviet-era ties amid heightened security after the suspected sabotage of several subsea cables and pipelines. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailed the move, years in the planning, as marking a new era of freedom for the region, in a speech at a ceremony in Vilnius alongside the leaders of the three countries and the Polish president. Debated for many years, the complex switch away from the grid of their former Soviet imperial overlord gained momentum following Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

HOW MICE LEARN TO SUPPRESS FEAR, IMPLICATIONS OF THIS FINDING

A team of scientists has determined how the brain of a mouse overcomes instinctive fear, according to the findings of a new study. The findings can have implications for developing treatments to benefit people who struggle with fear-related disorders, including phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study, 'Overwriting an instinct: Visual cortex instructs learning to suppress fear responses', was published in the journal Science on February 6. It was carried out by researchers based at the University College London (the United Kingdom). In a laboratory experiment, the researchers exposed 100 mice to a repeated visual threat that proved harmless over time - in this case, an expanding dark circle that imitated a swooping bird. To teach the mice that the dark circle was not dangerous, the researchers introduced a barrier to prevent the mice from hiding. According to the study, two brain areas were involved in helping the mice learn to distinguish the lack of threat. Over the years, scientists, while studying learning and memory in mice, have focused on examining the visual cortex. 

Private property and the state's right to acquire according to law

Laws in South Africa, the United States, and India all have certain common roots in Europe. Laws in all these countries allowing compulsory land acquisition and expropriation by the state are also known as "eminent domain". The expression can be traced to the legal treatise De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) written by the Dutch scholar Hugo Grotius in 1625. Grotius explained the term "dominium eminens" ("supreme lordship" in Latin) thus: "The property of subjects is under the eminent domain of the state, so that the state or he who acts for it may use and even alienate and destroy such property, not only in the case of extreme necessity...but for ends of public utility." This concept travelled with the European colonists, and was eventually codified into written laws such as the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, in India and the Expropriation Act, 1975, in South Africa.