Chennamaneni Ramesh (left) with BRS president KCR (File photo)

Hyderabad: A year after Telangana HC declared that former BRS MLA Chennamaneni Ramesh was not an Indian citizen and imposed a Rs 30 lakh fine on him for concealing his German citizenship while contesting assembly elections, he continues to receive a pension of Rs 60,000 as a former MLA.Congress MLA Adi Srinivas has urged the assembly secretary not to pay the pension to Ramesh, arguing that he is not entitled to any govt benefits, and has demanded the recovery of benefits, emoluments, and salary already given to the German citizen.“As there has been no action on my previous request, I am again urging the assembly secretary and the Speaker to stop his pension immediately. I will approach the HC on this issue again, if required,” said Srinivas, who had challenged Ramesh’s citizenship.Sources said the assembly secretary had earlier informed Srinivas that the high court order did not mention recovering salary and other emoluments from Ramesh, and that there was no provision under existing rules to make such recoveries.Under the Telangana assembly rules, former MLAs are entitled to a pension, medical reimbursement, and other benefits. As Ramesh had served four terms as MLA from Vemulawada, he drew over Rs 50,000 as monthly pension from Dec 2023. Following court order, Ramesh paid Rs 30 lakh in damages.Former Telangana advocate general K Rama Krishna Reddy said, “The legislative secretary cannot decide on pension issues as he does not have adjudicating powers. The assembly Speaker can decide whether Ramesh is entitled to the pension, as this is a decision to be taken post-disposal of the court case. Srinivas can also approach the competent court on the issue.”He added that Srinivas had approached Supreme Court by filing a special leave petition to declare him elected for the terms Ramesh served as MLA. However, in Aug this year, Supreme Court, declining to interfere, said it could not ‘resurrect’ the matter as the term of the election had already ended.“Even SC did not address the emoluments and pension when the present MLA approached top court,” a source close to Ramesh told TOI.

Donald Trump on Monday said that the United States had “hit” an area in Venezuela where boats are loaded with drugs, which would mark the first known time the US carried out operations on land in Venezuela since a pressure campaign began against the President Nicolas Maduro government.“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said.“We hit all the boats, and now we hit the area… it’s the implementation area.”It was not immediately clear which part of the US govt acted and what target was hit. Trump previously said that he authorised the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.On a radio show last week, Trump made vague comments about an apparent US operation against a “big facility” in Venezuela. The Central Intelligence Agency, the White House and the Pentagon did not publicly elaborate on those comments and declined to comment on questions posed by Reuters. The Venezuelan government did not comment on the incident Trump described and there were no independent reports from Venezuela of it.The administration previously touted its success in taking out suspected drug trafficking vessels, and the Pentagon posted footage of several of its strikes on social media. The lack of response by US national security agencies raised questions about whether the incident Trump mentioned was carried out covertly. Such an operation would likely limit the ability of US officials to speak on the matter.Last month, Reuters reported that the US was poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations, as the Trump administration escalated pressure on Maduro’s govt. At the time, two US officials said covert operations would likely be the first part of the new action against Maduro.The US mission primarily focused on military strikes against suspected drug trafficking vessels and prompted intense oversight from Congress. More than 100 people were killed in more than 20 strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.Earlier this month, US military leaders briefed lawmakers on an incident in September in which an American strike killed 11 people but left several survivors. They were killed in a second strike ordered by Admiral Frank Bradley. Democrats on Capitol Hill questioned whether the second strike was conducted in accordance with international law.Trump’s comments came amid a massive US military build up in the Caribbean, including more than 15,000 troops.

Red tape may be often associated with officialdom but for J&K’s paperless bureaucracy, green is the go-to colour this year-end as it has achieved the equivalent of “planting over 4.5 lakh trees or taking over 2,200 cars off the roads permanently”, according to a study.Released on Monday, the study by Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, secretary in J&K’s science and technology department, shows the govt’s move from paper files to digital systems has helped avoid more than 62,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.Digitisation has removed the need for over 20 million paper pages each year, saving thousands of trees and cutting pollution, says Choudhary’s study, published by Journal of Research in Environmental and Earth Sciences. The research provides a first-of-its-kind, scientifically grounded environmental impact evaluation of digital public administration in a fragile Himalayan ecosystem.The govt formally shifted from physical movement of files to e-office in 2021. Choudhary calls it a turning point in the region’s administrative history. “The environmental impact was massive — 10,294 tonnes of CO2 eliminated every year. The scale of what changed is hard to grasp until you see the numbers. Since 2021, this transition has avoided printing 405.7 million pages. Think about that. Hundreds of millions of paper sheets that never got manufactured, never got transported, never ended up in landfills. Tens of thousands of trees still standing,” Choudhary said.The science and technology secretary explained the changes further. “As of mid-2025, over 26,000 users in the civil secretariat and more than 31,000 at HoD levels actively use the e-Office platform, processing millions of files and receipts annually. The transition has replaced physical file transport and in-person correspondence with a digital ecosystem supported by secure networks, VPNs, and over 1.8 lakh official email addresses,” says the study.The research was based on data from 2018 to 2025, administrative records, transport logs and energy consumption patterns, all analysed using international methodologies. “Now, 114,826 officials process everything digitally. They’ve handled 3.75 million files and 34 million receipts without paper. It’s faster, more transparent, and dramatically better for the environment,” Choudhary said.According to the secretary, the changes mark a paradigm shift in “our thinking on climate action”. “We focus so much on big industrial changes. But govt operations themselves have a significant carbon footprint. When you digitise an entire administrative system, especially in ecologically sensitive mountain regions, the environmental gains are substantial and immediate.”Choudhary held up the efforts as a model for administrative systems across India, especially in hilly states. “The combination of difficult terrain, fragile ecosystems, and administrative needs makes digital governance not just efficient but environmentally essential,” he said.

The number of ATMs in the country declined as people shifted digital payments. The e-payments network reduced customers’ need for cash withdrawals, even as bank branches continued to expand, a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report said.Private banks led the contraction, cutting their ATM network to 77,117 from 79,884, while public sector banks reduced their count to 133,544 from 134,694, mainly by shutting down offsite machines, according to the report cited by ANI. In contrast, white label ATM (ATMs set up, owned and operated by non-banks) operators expanded their presence, with the number of machines rising to 36,216 from 34,602.Public sector banks maintained a relatively balanced distribution of ATMs across rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan areas. Private and foreign banks, however, continued to concentrate their ATM networks largely in urban and metropolitan centres.Meanwhile, bank branches grew by 2.8 per cent to around 164,000, driven by a sharper expansion by public sector banks. More than two-thirds of the new branches opened by public sector banks were located in rural and semi-urban areas, compared with 37.5 per cent of new branches added by private banks.Basic savings bank deposit accounts continued to register steady growth, rising by 2.6 per cent to 72.4 crore accounts. Balances in these accounts increased by 9.5 per cent to Rs 3.3 lakh crore, with most accounts being operated through business correspondents, underlining their role in expanding banking access at the grassroots level.On deposit insurance, the report said 97.6 per cent of accounts remained covered under the existing Rs 5 lakh insurance limit at the end of FY25. However, the coverage ratio for insured deposits declined marginally to 41.5 per cent from 43.1 per cent in the previous year.The RBI attributed the decline in ATM numbers to the increasing digitalisation of payments, noting that it has reduced customers’ requirement to transact through ATMs.

SAN FRANCISCO: India is no longer a decade behind Silicon Valley in building with artificial intelligence, Elevation Capital’s AI partner Krishna Mehra said, arguing that founders in Bengaluru and other Indian hubs are now closer to the global frontier and should aim to build category-leading companies rather than “number two or three” players.“In the SaaS days… SF was maybe 10-plus years ahead in AI,” Mehra said in an interview in San Francisco. “We’ve narrowed the gap significantly… maybe we are six months behind in India or one year behind,” he said, underscoring how much the distance has reduced from earlier tech waves.Mehra, an IIT Kharagpur alumnus who has previously co-founded Capillary Technologies and food-tech startup Taro, joined Elevation in 2024 to deepen the firm’s India-US corridor focus.The sharper opportunity for Indian founders in the AI cycle, Mehra said, comes from how products are being rebuilt “from first principles” rather than incrementally improving legacy software. In previous waves, companies could build in India, replicate established product patterns and move later for go-to-market scale. With AI, he said, user workflows and product capabilities can change materially every few months, making early market feedback critical.“Products can be rethought completely,” Mehra said, contrasting older shifts such as on-premise to cloud, where interfaces and usage patterns remained broadly comparable. In AI-native software, he said, founders need faster iteration with the end market they are building for.That shift is also changing founder geography, he said. While India’s advanced tech talent can help founders build early hypotheses quickly, he said many teams are moving to the US earlier than before “pretty much at a pre-seed level” to validate and sharpen their thesis with global customers and communities.“The number of meetups and AI sessions and mixers here is crazy,” he said, describing Silicon Valley’s “talent density” and the speed at which founders can access feedback. He also pointed to a culture where “people will open their doors” for a compelling insight, including startups working closely from customer locations.Mehra’s investment lens at Elevation, he said, is shaped by a belief that the ingredients for global outcomes are stronger in India today than a decade ago: deeper product talent, better understanding of go-to-market, more sophisticated local customers even if willingness to pay is lower than in the US, more risk capital, and higher founder ambition.“If those ingredients are there, can we build some category defining companies? Absolutely,” he said, adding that India should aim for “global number one” outcomes rather than settling for smaller positions.Mehra also flagged how quickly assumptions can flip in the AI market, citing how competitive dynamics in areas like software engineering tools can change as model providers move to capture more value. The key question for investors and founders, he said, is whether value is coming purely from the underlying model or whether the application layer can build durable differentiation, even if the path to value capture becomes clearer over time.

A defining feature of 2025 was India’s renewed emphasis on Free Trade Agreements as strategic resilience tools. (AI image)

By Agneshwar SenThe year 2025 marked a decisive turning point in global trade. Slower growth in major economies, sudden tariff escalations and growing concentration of critical supply chains made international commerce more fragmented and unpredictable. Yet, amid this turbulence, India demonstrated notable resilience and began a deliberate recalibration of its global economic integration.India’s total exports in FY 2024–25 reached $824.9 billion, registering a 6% year-on-year increase despite muted global demand. This performance did not reflect insulation from global headwinds, but a conscious strategic shift combining market diversification, supply-chain repositioning and institutional reform.One of the disruptions of 2025 came from the United States’ reciprocal tariff announcements across sensitive sectors such as metals, chemicals and machinery. These measures had a material impact: India’s exports to the US declined by approximately 37.5% between May and September 2025. India’s response focused on containment rather than confrontation. While the bilateral trade deal with the US may now be concluded in 2026, India moved on to face the disruptions. Trade defence instruments such as anti-dumping and safeguard duties were deployed to prevent destabilising import surges, while export support schemes were recalibrated to favour value-added manufacturing. Customs processes were streamlined through wider risk-based clearances to save time and improve competitiveness.A defining feature of 2025 was India’s renewed emphasis on Free Trade Agreements as strategic resilience tools. The India–EFTA Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement, signed in March 2024 and in force from 1 October 2025, marked India’s first operational FTA with developed European nations. Under this agreement, India secured duty concessions on more than 92% of tariff lines, and the partnership is projected to attract $100 billion in investment and create one million jobs over 15 years.In parallel, India and the United Kingdom signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement on 24 July 2025, with implementation expected in mid-2026. Once operational, it will provide duty-free access to 99% of India’s exports to the UK by value. Negotiations with the European Union, Canada, New Zealand, the GCC, The Eurasian Economic Union, Israel and Oman progressed steadily, creating a wider, rules-based network of trade partnerships.To boost domestic exports through upgrading export infrastructure, strengthening trade finance availability, improving market intelligence and enabling MSMEs to meet global standards, the government launched a ₹25,060-crore mission. This marks a structural shift from episodic incentives to systematic export capability building.Global supply-chain diversification further shaped India’s trade trajectory. Companies in electronics, pharmaceuticals, auto components and solar equipment accelerated strategies to hedge geopolitical and tariff risks. India emerged as a key beneficiary through targeted production-linked incentives and a strengthening manufacturing ecosystem. Indian firms increasingly integrated into wider global production networks, moving steadily up the value chain.India also broadened its export geography. Shipments to Africa, West Asia and Latin America grew steadily, reducing dependence on traditional Western markets and acting as a natural buffer when US-bound exports slowed down. Geographic diversification functioned as a practical risk-management tool rather than a purely aspirational objective. Export diversification helped control the damage from the uncertain US market conditions.Domestic policy reforms strengthened India’s ability to absorb external shocks. The roll-out of GST 2.0 simplified the indirect tax structure from a four-slab system to a two-slab framework, lowering compliance burdens and reducing classification disputes. A high-level committee recommended targeted rollback of the Quality Control Order regime, which by 2025 covered about 790 products, easing input-cost pressures and supply bottlenecks. The government also signalled reforms to the customs duty regime through lower rates on selected goods, greater transparency and reduced discretion.Looking ahead to 2026, two structural priorities will define India’s trade position: access to critical minerals and logistics competitiveness. India has approved a ₹7,280-crore production linked incentive scheme to promote domestic rare-earth magnet manufacturing, along with strategic arrangements with mineral-rich partners such as Australia and selected African economies.Logistics reform is the second critical lever. Under the PM Gati Shakti initiative, multiple multimodal logistics parks and dedicated cargo terminals linked to freight corridors and major ports are under construction. The Indian Ports Act, 2025 has introduced a modern regulatory framework to streamline port operations, enhance tariff transparency and align India’s maritime ecosystem with global standards.The central lesson of 2025 is that resilience in global trade does not come from inward retreat, but from strategic integration. India is shifting from reacting to volatility towards shaping outcomes. Through diversified markets, stronger trade agreements, secure critical mineral access and competitive logistics. India is positioning itself not merely to participate in global commerce, but to influence its future direction.(Agneshwar Sen is Trade Policy Leader, EY India. Shiv Ashish, Senior Tax Professional, EY India, also contributed to the article)

Magnus Carlsen slams table again (Screengrabs)

World No. 1 and five-time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen once again grabbed headlines for his emotional reaction at the chessboard on Monday. This time, it happened after he lost to India’s Arjun Erigaisi at the World Blitz Championship in Doha.

The Norwegian star slammed the table after running out of time, with the video of his action quickly going viral on social media platforms.Watch:Arjun defeated the defending blitz champion in the ninth round, which has become one of the biggest shocks of the event. Before that round, six players, including Arjun and Carlsen, were tied at the top with 6.5 points each. With the win, Arjun moved to 7.5 points and joined Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov at the top of the standings. What made Arjun’s victory even more impressive was that he played with the black pieces. In chess, whites play the first move. And hence, it is understood that the white pieces hold the advantage over the black pieces.Carlsen opened the game in his usual aggressive style, but Arjun stayed calm and slowly gained control. At one point, the Indian grandmaster won a pawn and kept the pressure on. Although Carlsen managed to win the pawn back, the position was already leaning in Arjun’s favour. Under heavy time pressure, Carlsen defended hard but eventually lost on time, which led to another frustrated table slam. This was not the first time Carlsen showed his anger during the event. Earlier in the rapid section, he lost to Russian grandmaster Vladislav Artemiev. After that defeat, Carlsen shook hands, grabbed his blazer, and walked away angrily. As he was leaving, he pushed away a camera that came too close.Earlier this year in Norway, he famously smashed the table after losing a winning position to India’s D Gukesh. That moment went viral and was widely discussed and mocked online.