Table of contents for 19 January 2026 in India Today

Two men whose actions directly impact the lives of nearly two billion people. With that baseline, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US president Donald Trump could have been in the elite shortlist for Newsmaker of the Year 2025 individually. Why choose them as a double bill? Because, as 2025 rolled past all its twists and forks, on some of which their paths crossed, the duo played out an intense diplomatic duel. Modi conducted it deftly, keeping ties equable if tense—not adversarial, but not quite a bromance either. More fascinating was how Modi turned it into an occasion to create space for a pivot to his policy persona. Having won a historic third term in 2024, albeit with a reduced mandate, Modi was perfectly positioned to play this moment adroitly. He had…

TARIFF TERROR ↘ The US under President Donald Trump first imposes a 25 per cent tariff on 55 Indian export categories, citing high trade deficit in India’s favour and trade barriers ↘ Then it imposes a further 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods—a penalty for India’s purchase of cheap Russian crude oil VISA & IMMIGRATION BARRIERS ↘ Most H1B visas, a primary route for skilled professionals to live and work in the US, are granted to Indians ↘ The US imposes a hefty $100,000 fee for each new H1B application. Reason: the claim that they “take away American jobs” ↘ With around 400,000 illegal Indian immigrants in the US, it has deported over 3,000 since January 2025, with handcuffed and chained deportees sent back on chartered aircraft DIPLOMATIC DISSONANCE…

Way back in 2006, then prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh had identified Maoism as “the single biggest internal security challenge faced by the country”. Two decades had to pass before its end was in sight, and it was Union home minister Amit Shah who made it his remit to preside over its dismantling. A movement that once held sway over 160 districts in the country has now been worn down to 11. Only three contiguous districts in Chhattisgarh—Sukma, Bijapur and Narayanpur—remain in the ‘most affected’ list, according to the October 2025 assessment by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Clearly, cutting the legs off the Maoist movement has been Shah’s crowning achievement in 2025, though political analysts will also point to how the BJP’s master election strategist shepherded the party…

Legions of wide-eyed kids sat glued to their living room TVs in 1984 as Punjab boy Rakesh Sharma made a call to Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi from space and, training his gaze on the nation, said it was “Saare jahan se accha” (the best of them all). Though future Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot and only the second Indian in space Shubhanshu Shukla was not one of those kids, born a full year later, Sharma had already spelled the trajectory of his life. Over a four-decade-long journey that would involve chance, grit, ambition and unerring talent, this boy from Lucknow would follow Sharma and become Astronaut 634, climbing aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in July last year and making history for Indian spaceflight. “Pursuing a dream is in…

For long, the women in blue lived under the imposing shadow of the men’s national cricket team. International matches were few, visibility negligible. Ever since their ODI World Cup final appearance in 2017 and the start of the Women’s Premier League in 2023, they were on the verge of breaking through to the other side—recognition, adulation and big bucks. It was the sheer tenacity, chutzpah and cricketing calibre with which Harmanpreet Kaur’s girls passed through the mirror that sealed them a spot in Indian cricket’s hall of fame. At the finish line, on November 2, 2025, the team was crowned world ODI champions. No one had foreseen this eventuality after the team suffered three consecutive losses in the group stages of a home tournament. But after being written off, they…

How do you write about Salman Rushdie? He has transcended literature—a terrible fate for any writer—and become a symbol, a standard bearer for free speech. Except when his speech irritates, as it recently did Hindu nationalists outraged by him expressing concern for the “attack on freedoms of journalists, of writers, of intell ec tuals”. And yet, the magnificent thing about Rushdie is that he perseveres, he refuses to stop telling stories. In Knife, he writes: “Language was my knife. If I had unexpectedly been caught in an unwanted knife fight, maybe this was the knife I could use to fight back.” Knife (2024) was Rushdie’s account of being stabbed onstage in 2022 by Hadi Matar who claimed to dislike the writer because he “attacked Islam”. Rushdie lost sight in one eye and…

Salima Hashmi’s two-volume memoir, Waiting in the Wings, and Enter Stage Left, is about her father, the great Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and her life. It also illuminates post-1947 Lahore and Pakistan, and is a thoughtful addition to the annals of our always interesting subcontinent. Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s The Undying Light stands out for its unusual candour and riveting exploration of the legacy of his grandfathers—C. Rajagopalachari and Mahatma Gandhi. It is also a story of modern India since 1947, and Gandhi’s perspective—as a former governor and ambassador, plus a senior aide to more than one President—is a valuable one. Much slimmer and more offbeat is Rajwati and Her Times, Madhu Bhaduri’s moving memoir of her courageous grandmother’s response to Partition’s ravages. SrinathRaghavan’s Indira Gandhi and the Years That Transformed India provides…

For decades, the luxury dining scene operated on a simple, universal metric: cost and scarcity. The prestige of a plate was measured by its weight in wagyu, scent in truffles, its spoon-load of caviar or its slice of foie gras. These were the undisputed champions of extravagance. That metric is changing fast. The new status symbol in high end gastronomy isn’t the most expensive item; it’s the one with the deepest story. Today’s chefs are elevating the humble, the local, and the seasonal proving that authenticity, time, and patient technique are the true currencies of culinary opulence. This global shift is perfectly captured at Joontos, a Michelin Guide restaurant inside Dar Tantora The House Hotel in AlUla, Saudi Arabia. Here, chef Jaume Puigdengolas extracts extraordinary flavour from ingredients that carry…

When Indore-boy Vedant Newatia returned home after working in kitchens across the world, he was keen to elevate his city’s dining scene. In 2024 he opened Atelier V, a restaurant and cocktail bar with a focus on world cuisine. Now, next door to it, he’s launched Masala Code, a deep immersion into India’s regional cuisines, with around 30 of them making it to the menu, including several micro cuisines. To pull off this feat, Newatia, whose own training is in classical French cuisine, tapped into the diverse talent right under his nose—the staff in his kitchen comes from all over India and their local knowledge served as the backbone of this unique dining concept. Besides, Newatia travels extensively around India on what must be delectable research trips. It’s an extensive…

At the start of 2025, the compulsions that drove Narendra Modi and Donald Trump were similar. Both were seen as strongmen who had entered uncharted political territory in their respective countries. With both over 70 years old, the quest for them was less about political survival and more about establishing a lasting and impactful legacy. Modi, 75, created electoral history when he won a third consecutive term in the 2024 general election, equalling the record set by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. With one difference, though. Unlike the Congress under Nehru, the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its third term failed to secure a simple majority on its own in the Lok Sabha, winning only 240 out of 543 seats, 32 short of the requisite target of 272.…

Over the past decade, Indians have been lulled into thinking that terrorist attacks targeting tourists/pilgrims in Kashmir—occurrences that once happened with horrific regularity—were a thing of the past. That sense of smug satisfaction was shattered on the rolling glades in picturesque Pahalgam on April 22, 2025, when a brutal attack claimed the lives of 26 male tourists. The assault, linked to groups associated with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), was an attempt by Pakistan to disrupt the hard-fought peace in J&K. As indignation and anger surged across the country, many expected a decisive response, such as the 2016 surgical strikes after the Uri terror attack and the 2019 Balakot airstrike following the Pulwama attack. On May 7, 2025, India launched Operation Sindoor—a series of precision strikes by the Indian Air…

For two decades, politics in Bihar has been riven by tempests, many seemingly designed to write him off. Yet Nitish Kumar has had an uncanny gift of inveigling himself back to the seat of power—and invariably on his own terms. But when he took the chief minister’s oath for the 10th time in 2025, it was not on account of any crafty pivot between allies. Instead, what left everyone astounded this time was a bonafide piece of electoral magic: he led his party, the Janata Dal (United), and its NDA allies to 202 seats out of 243, a victory that was near-imperial in its sweep. Amazingly, this was a tsunami that came against the tide, as it were. As the race began, his chief ally, the BJP, was hesitant to…

V.S. ACHUTHANANDAN | b. 1923 | CPI(M), Ex-Kerala CM The legendary Communist leader was a ripe old 101 when he passed away in July last year. An old-school ‘Lal salaam’ hardliner, he was the state’s most popular leader across party lines. VS, or ‘Achumama’ as the young generation called him, joined the Reds when he was just 14, and was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1964, when it broke away from the parent Communist Party of India (CPI). VS, who always ended up second-best in the CM race, finally got the chair when he was 82 (2006-2011). His outspoken, uncompromising stand against corruption, land-grabbing and such endeared him to the public, but in later years the party cast him adrift. JAYANT NARLIKAR…

I want to reflect on four books that made a major impact on me in 2025; what all four share is a focus on the history of people, their practices and their folkways, not the dry recitation of battles and the rise and fall of kings. Laura Spinney’s Proto is about the reconstruction of a lost language, the common ancestor of all Indo-European languages, spoken by about half of the world’s people, but in the course of the narrative you survey fields as disparate as comparative linguistics, archaeology and the politics of identity. Proto hints at the toxi-city that has been associated with the ‘Indo-European question’, but moves the reader over and over back to the scientific issues at hand and the latest results. Less emotion. More analysis. Francis Young’s Silence…

AFTER NATIONS The Making and Unmaking of a World Order By Rana Dasgupta Penguin/Allen Lane Non-fiction Rana Dasgupta’s last book, Capital (2014), was an astute mapping of New Delhi’s socio-economic trajectories in the 21st century. His new work of nonfiction is even more ambitious, unpacking the historic origins of the nation-state itself. As democracies around the world approach a tipping point, and autocracies like Russia and China grow more ascendant every year, Dasgupta sketches the likely political end-game of the nation-state system. ONCE ELEPHANTS LIVED HERE By Geetanjali Shree Translated by Daisy Rockwell Penguin/Hamish Hamilton Fiction The International Booker-winning combination of Hindi writer Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell returns with Once Elephants Lived Here, a collection of short fiction. The titular story is an elegiac portrayal of communal violence,…

NO HORSE PLAY The new year may or may not usher in a slew of resolutions, but what it does promise is a host of watch iterations dedicated to the Chinese Zodiac. Longines unveils a special edition of its Master Collection to celebrate the Year of the Horse. This watch is not just an homage to the new lunar year but also summons the brand’s enduring bond with the equestrian world. Collaborating with the Peon Art Museum in China, the watch sports a meticulously engraved iconic motif from Peon Xu’s celebrated painting Galloping Horse. The key visual depicts a galloping horse set against a dynamic landscape, with golden ripples forming beneath its hooves. With every movement of the wrist, the horse appears to gallop forward; its powerful stance embodying resilience…

Chef Gaggan Anand’s restaurant Gaggan remains a fixture in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ top ten list. He is also number one restaurant in Asia’s 50 Best. The man behind this Michelin star restaurant is one of the most acclaimed Indian chefs in the world. He has won accolades that were once seen as limited to Japanese or French restaurants. In an exclusive chat with India Today Spice, the maverick chef entrepreneur reveals why 2026 is a big year for him since he plans on renovating and reopening a whole new Gaggan experience in Bangkok…and…open a restaurant in India too! We hear, 20 years after you left India, you are coming back to open a restaurant here. Is this true? Yes, I am opening a restaurant in 2026 in India.…

If your laptop starts sweating at 25 browser tabs, meet its therapist: the MacBook Pro 14-inch with M5 chipset. It stays calm, quiet and somehow makes chaos look organised. This is our review of the new-age Apple notebook, which everyone wants. Same Suit, Better Fit The 2021-era chassis returns in Space Black or Silver and that is fine because it still feels premium and sturdy. Ports are practical—three Thunderbolt 4, MagSafe 3, HDMI 2.1, SDXC and a headphone jack. Our only grumble is the missing Thunderbolt 5, especially for creators who live on fast external drives. Matte with Manners The 14.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR panel remains excellent, with ProMotion, 1,000 nits sustained HDR and 1,600 nits of peak brightness. It also gets impressively dim for late-night edits. The optional nano-texture upgrade…

REFORM EXPRESS ↘ Budget 2025 lifts effective tax-free income to Rs 12.75 lakh, benefiting the salaried middle class ↘ GST tax slabs are restructured, compliance procedures streamlined ↘ FDI cap for insurance sector increased to 100 per cent, opening the way for full foreign ownership ↘ The SHANTI Bill, 2025 opens up the atomic energy sector to private and foreign participation THE WARRIOR ↘ India’s retaliation to the Pahalgam attack, Operation Sindoor, draws a new red line, with PM Modi saying: “If there is a terrorist attack on India, a fitting reply will be given” CAPTAIN COOL ↘ Under pressure from US tariffs, diversifies India’s export channels by signing trade agreements with the UK and Oman, finalising free trade agreement with New Zealand ↘ As ties with US come under…

IN Nagpur’s Reshimbagh ground, under the mellow October sun, Mohan Bhagwat walked to the dais with his familiar unhurried stride. Saffron flags fluttered, thousands of uniformed cadre stood in formation, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) anthem filled the air. The ritual was a familiar one, but this particular enactment of it marked a special milestone. The RSS, born in 1925, was ringing in a full centenary. If the weight of the moment needed a figure with a natural, unforced air of authority to embody it and project it outward—without shouting—the sarsanghchalak, himself now 75, answered to that description perfectly. It’s not just tradition that vests him with that authority. The year 2025 demonstrated its currency value in the political sphere, sealing beyond all doubt signs of the street power visible…

Gyanesh Kumar’s arrival at Nirvachan Sadan in February 2025 came with an institutional redesign. As the first chief election commissioner appointed under the reworked 2023 law, one that quietly clipped judicial influence from the selection panel, his elevation itself became a political flashpoint. The Opposition saw in the new system a tilt toward executive dominance. The government described it as a rationalisation. Kumar—a veteran bureaucrat who had long mastered the art of surviving shifting constitutional weather—insisted that the Election Commission remained independent. However, it was clear that his tenure would be measured less by proclamations and more by whether he could rebuild trust in a political climate allergic to consensus. Kumar began by moving fast. Within his first 100 days in office, he unveiled a sprawling 21-point reform agenda that included…

When the Tata Group acquired Air India in 2022 as part of the government’s divestment effort, hope had soared that the national airline would now see a professional hand. But those expectations dashed to the ground along with Flight 171 on June 12, when a London Gatwick-bound Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad airport, killing 241 people on board and 19 on the ground. An interim report, to be published mandatorily within a month of a disaster, did not blame anyone. The 15-page document released by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau in July referred to a last-minute exchange between the captain and first officer, captured on the flight recorder. According to the report, the fuel switches of both engines were in the ‘cut-off’ position, with one pilot…

AMITAV GHOSH’S LATEST NOVEL GHOST-EYE BEGINS IN 1969 WITH THE GUPTAS, a vegetarian Marwari family in Calcutta, at their wits’ end. Out of the blue, their three-year-old daughter Varsha demands fish and rice for lunch, claiming more-over that she has memories of a previous life, with her ‘real’ mother (in a little Bengali village in the Sundarbans) who taught her how to catch and cook a great many varieties of fish. Dr Shoma Bose, a psychologist and therapist specialising in children who claim to remember past lives, is intrigued by Varsha, especially after the girl clears a blind test designed to test her knowledge of fish. Half a century later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shoma’s nephew Dinu, an antiquarian with a curious mind and a soft spot for her, decides to…

If fiction is the art of making the unexpected feel extraordinary, more than one book—or three—by Indian writers lived up to that expectation. Ruchir Joshi’s Great Eastern Hotel pushes back resolutely against short attention spans with effervescent prose and a vast storyline that takes Calcutta out of the aftermath of World War II and projects it on our mental screens with cinematic clarity and luxurious detail. In Ruthvika Rao’s debut, The Fertile Earth, caste politics is played out intersectionally with a generational conflict between the women of a family in rural Andhra Pradesh, even as the Naxalite movement becomes a character of its own. It’s that rare book that makes you feel you’re reading a land and a people rather than just a set of characters. I will read Rahul…

Q. What compelled you to tell your story? Why now? This story had been living inside me for decades, quietly asking to be heard. I felt ready now—emotionally, physically, spiritually—to offer it not as confession, but as companionship to others navigating silence, difference and love. Q. Was it difficult coming to terms with your sexuality? I knew very early that I was different—by the age of three I sensed my oddness, and by five I knew I didn’t fit the expected mould. The language came much later, in adolescence; the awareness, unease and quiet shame were always already there. Q. What role has food played in your awakening? Food became my first safe language—long before words felt possible. It allowed me to give love, receive acceptance and feel worthy in…

TIME TO TEQUILA Famed Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh is fielding a new passion these days, with the launch of his tequila brand, FINO. The Tequila is an artisanal brand born in the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico, and crafted from 100% blue Weber agave, which—along with Jalisco’s famed red soil and unique climate—results in a sweeter agave with a more intense aroma. Each of the four distinctive variants offers intricate flavour profiles. Price ₹34,038; Availability (Delhi, Ahmedabad and Mumbai Duty Free and retail outlets Glass Roots Grounded in ancient Indian wisdom and inspired by the mystique of the Himalayas, IDAAYA blends 12-year-old Bourbon cask–aged rum with pure Indian rum and employs a traditional Solera system in Sal wood casks. Apart from creating depth, richness, and character, this multi-award-winning Himalayan sipping rum…

Long before I knew what differentiated Bourbon whiskey from other American styles, I had already come across the brand Buffalo Trace on a shelf somewhere and had immediately wondered how it came to be christened so. What traces do Buffaloes leave in their wake, who was keeping track, and why. Also, what did it all have to do with whiskey? So many questions; thankfully, my recent visit to the Buffalo Trace Distillery (BTD) in Kentucky, USA, answered all these and many others. A ‘Trace’ refers to a part in the river which runs fairly shallow, (especially in hot season) which allows animals (such as buffalo herds) to cross over (wade through). This would have been an important sign for the early settlers in the area, pointing to possibly other fertile…

From the tranquil valley of Ibach-Schwyz, Victorinox has defined Swiss preparedness for over 140 years. Yet, under the stewardship of the fourth generation, the maker of the original Swiss Army Knife is evolving. Veronika Elsener, Chief Marketing Officer, discusses steering the heritage brand through a new era of emotive storytelling, sustainability, and bespoke luxury for the Indian market. Victorinox has rolled out the evolved global brand platform “Made to be prepared.” How does this sharpen what the brand has always stood for? “Made to be Prepared” is not just a campaign—it’s the essence of Victorinox and what Victorinox has always stood for: smart solutions that are masterfully executed, helping our consumers feel ready for life’s everyday challenges. The evolution lies in how we communicate—moving from purely product-related attributes like quality…

There’s a reason, The Leela Palace New Delhi is the Grand Dame of old world luxury; it glorifies the romance of an unhurried way of being; an ode to the indulgent, the languorous, the slow and the sumptuous. And probably nothing captures this brand of heritage hedonism better than its restaurant, Jamavar. Famed for plating the past, Jamavar has just launched an all-new menu that reimagines time-honoured signature recipes through a contemporary prism. While the restaurant has always celebrated India’s gastronomic legacy, the new culinary narrative seems determined to weave together stories of regional riches and royal finesse. In a valiant bid to cobble together the diversity of the subcontinent’s cultural mosaic, it summons the essence of culinary traditions from the north, south and central parts of India, presenting them…