This study integrates global datasets to examine the plastic pollution pathway, linking production, leakage, transport, accumulation, and ecological impacts to highlight future risks for aquatic ecosystems.
Using data from 267 countries between 1960 and 2024, this study finds that trade openness and economic growth are not closely linked. However, trade agreements and volumes significantly reduce economic volatility, supporting sustainable long-term development.
Every crisis produces the same headline: the Global South has picked a side. A
decade of UN voting data says otherwise. The blocs reassemble with every issue.
Even the G4, four states with one ambition, does not vote as one.
Plastic pollution has become a major threat to aquatic ecosystems, with macroplastics degrading into microplastics that cause tissue damage and oxidative stress in marine organisms, potentially affecting humans through bioaccumulation and biomagnification, thereby posing significant ecological and health risks.
Despite significant increases in education budget allocations following the introduction of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, India continues to face a persistent gap between allocated funds and actual expenditure. This paper examines the budget-to-expenditure gap in the education sector by comparing the pre-NEP (FY 2018–19 to FY 2019–20) and post-NEP (FY 2021–22 to FY 2025–26) periods. Drawing exclusively on official sources, including Union Budget documents, Parliamentary Standing Committee reports, CAG audits, and PRS Legislative Research, the study analyzes national spending trends and compares implementation outcomes in Kerala and Jharkhand. The findings show that although Ministry of Education allocations increased by 29.5%, public expenditure on education remains around 4.1% of GDP, well below the NEP target of 6%. Scheme-level analysis reveals an average utilization rate of 86% under Samagra Shiksha, but this masks substantial interstate disparities, delayed fund releases, and uneven implementation. The study identifies governance weaknesses, administrative delays, and inadequate monitoring as the primary drivers of the budget-to-expenditure gap. It concludes that higher budget allocations alone cannot improve educational outcomes unless accompanied by timely fund releases, efficient utilization, stronger accountability mechanisms, and outcome-oriented financial governance.
Authors: 1. Nandana Gireesh, University of Kerala 2. Devangi Sandhu, Amity University, Noida 3. Kirtika Verma, Amity University, Noida 4. Ishayu Mukherjee, The Heritage School Abstract Strait of Hormuz continues to be one of the key strategic maritime chokepoints worldwide, ensuring the passage of more than 20% of global oil supplies. With China being the largest crude oil importer, stability within the Strait is critical to securing both economic growth and security interests. The period from 2018 to 2025 has seen several developments that exposed vulnerabilities of global energy supply chains, including tanker attacks in the Gulf, US sanctions on Iran, increasing regional tensions, and disruptions of international energy trade due to the coronavirus pandemic. Increasingly complex security landscape in the Gulf illustrates the connection between strategic competition, interdependence, and vulnerability in energy supply. Within the scope of Geopolitical Security Theory and Complex Interdependence Theory, the impact of increased insecurity in the region on China’s growing energy security needs in relation to Gulf countries will be analysed. Despite growing economic partnerships and investment projects in the region, including the Belt and Road Initiative, geopolitical challenges still pose risks to energy supply safety. Consequently, the Strait of Hormuz remains both a critical energy lifeline and a strategic vulnerability within China’s broader energy security framework. Keywords: Energy security, Strait of Hormuz, China–Iran relations, Iran sanctions, Maritime chokepoint, Complex interdependence, Tanker warfare, Gulf geopolitics, Belt and Road Initiative, Post-COVID instability, Renewable energy transition
Author : Laksh Asija Abstract This study conducts a comparative analysis of government-led and market-led FinTech models and their respective impacts on financial inclusion, using India and Kenya as contrasting case studies. India’s government-led model, anchored by the JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan–Aadhaar–Mobile) and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), is compared against Kenya’s market-led model, exemplified by Safaricom’s M-Pesa mobile money platform. Drawing on secondary data from the World Bank Global Findex Database, the Reserve Bank of India, the Central Bank of Kenya, and existing academic literature, this study employs a qualitative comparative case study methodology to evaluate both models across five analytical dimensions: access, usage, cost, depth, and sustainability. Findings reveal that government-led models demonstrate superior capacity for broad-based, equitable access at zero cost, while market-led models show advantages in product depth and rural usage penetration. The study concludes that hybrid models combining public infrastructure with private competition offer the most promising pathway to comprehensive financial inclusion in developing economies.
India’s engineering underemployment crisis reflects not individual unemployability but deeper structural failures in education, regulation, regional opportunity, and social inequality, exposing a persistent gap between India’s development ambitions and its constitutional promise of equal, dignified, and secure livelihoods.
U.S. retrenchment from multilateral institutions between 2017–2021 exposed critical vulnerabilities in the SDG framework, disrupting climate finance, global health, and development aid. While the EU, China, and Global South actors partially filled the gap, hegemonic absence remains costly and disproportionately burdens the world’s most vulnerable nations.
Authors: Yashita Dhaundiyal and Kakul Sharma Abstract The battlefield has always been a place of destruction where behind every act of war, there was always a human being who could judge, take responsibility, and was bound by law. But now, that assurance is fading. Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly in modern military systems. Systems like drones are no longer waiting for commands; they identify targets, select them, and engage them by themselves. We can no longer say that a human is behind every act of violence. As these systems move from movies into real life, the world has to ask: can a machine fight a war legally? Can a machine also be bound by law? This paper’s focus is to examine the legality of autonomous weapon systems under international law, focusing on the challenges they are going to bring to accountability, humanitarian rules, and global regulations. This is not just a theory; it is a real, practical problem. The United States, China, Russia, and Israel have already developed these systems, and AI-assisted targeting systems are already part of the defense strategies of major military powers, making real decisions with little to no human oversight. What is still missing is any real international accountability. As legal scholars have called it, this is a responsibility gap; a fundamental crack in the moral architecture of war itself. When a target is selected, when a life is taken, someone has to answer for it. Autonomous weapons challenge that premise at its very core, and the international legal order has not caught up. The main argument of this paper is that autonomous weapons as they exist today create serious conflicts with the foundational rules of international humanitarian law; and this responsibility gap must be addressed urgently, because war has always needed accountability, and that does not go away just because the combatant no longer has a face. Keywords: Autonomous Weapons Systems, International Humanitarian Law, Responsibility Gap, Accountability, Artificial Intelligence in Warfare