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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. FOR SEVEN decades Tokyo was considered the world’s most populous city. That was 15 years too long, according to data released last month by the UN.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Even as we are engaged in protracted negotiations with the US to sew up a trade deal, India has gone ahead with much agility to sign several others. In recent months, New Delhi has concluded deals with Australia and the UAE, apart from a long-awaited pact with the UK, and announced progress on trade agreements with New Zealand and the EU.

₹70 to a dollar. Today, it’s significantly higher.

From the Sensex delivering over 9% return in 2025 to industrial output rising to a two-year high, Indian exports getting zero-duty access to Australia, the US’s humanitarian aid commitment to the United Nations plunging to the lowest in over 25 years, and a sharp rise in bank fraud amount—here's a compilation of this week's news in numbers. The Indian stock market remained resilient in 2025 despite several external risks like US tariffs lingering throughout the year. The BSE Sensex gained 7,082 points in 2025, recording an increase of 9.1%.

The impact of Trump 2.0: The year saw a stark turn in US engagement, with Trump’s approach to the Indo-Pacific characterized by unpredictability at best and rent-seeking at worst.The recently-released US National Security Strategy was emblematic of this ambiguity, prioritizing quid pro quo ties over legacy commitments and the use of muscular rhetoric while offering little doctrinal clarity.This has sent out mixed signals on China, as its deterrence rhetoric coexists with policy fuzziness and even deference in some parts, with US partners struggling to identify US thresholds for action, particularly on high-stakes issues such as Taiwan.Despite the rhetorical turbulence emanating from Washington, alliance architectures did not collapse, although they didn’t sprint forward either.Traditional security partnerships with Japan, Australia, South Korea and the Philippines have endured amid a sobering realization of the magnitude of US capabilities, particularly vis-à-vis strategic concerns about China.Nonetheless, the pace and predictability of strategic cooperation have waned, which is telling in the context of a tenuous regional landscape.Hence, although formal alliances will continue to matter, their political meaning has shifted, with partner countries less willing now to outsource strategy entirely to Washington and more inclined to shape outcomes independently, reflecting a post-‘hub-and-spokes complacency’ mindset.Similarly, multilateral formats like the Quad persisted and adapted, but the coherence of their agenda often reflected leadership from partners as much as from Washington.Initiatives such as maritime domain awareness and cooperation on critical minerals, for example, were driven more on the ground by Canberra,

₹2,000-crore technology upgradation scheme for small businesses in the 2026-27 budget, aimed at boosting the adoption of energy-efficient machinery, two people aware of the development said.The technology upgradation scheme, proposed by the Union ministry of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME), and currently under discussion, will cover MSMEs with annual turnover of less than ₹50 crore, offering them a 20% capital subsidy for purchase of energy-efficient machinery, smart manufacturing, and automation upgrades, said the first of the two persons cited earlier, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.A micro enterprise has an annual turnover of up to ₹5 crore, a small enterprise up to ₹50 crore, and a medium enterprise up to ₹500 crore.The plan comes amid several countries introducing their own carbon taxes on imports from nations with weaker climate regulations. The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) comes into effect from 1 January.

India’s exports are heavily dependent on the US, and are currently under threat due to high tariffs. But hidden in numbers is another simple story: the region that could boost Indian exports is not across the Pacific, but across its borders.

Reuters report.The massive, factory-sized system has reportedly been dubbed China’s “Manhattan Project”, a reference to the top-secret US effort during World War II to develop the atomic bomb ahead of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s.The development has profound implications for the global balance of technological and strategic power. At its core, it can dismantle the West’s near-monopoly over the production of the world’s most advanced chips—those that power AI systems, smartphones, and modern military platforms.A 2024 study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute pointed to a “stunning shift in research leadership over the past two decades towards large economies in the Indo-Pacific, led by China’s exceptional gains.“The US led in 60 of 64 technologies in the five years from 2003 to 2007.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SYDNEY—In the immediate aftermath of the deadly attack on a Jewish community at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, images of a man tackling one of the shooters—potentially preventing even more deaths—transfixed the world. But footage from the scene showed there were other instances of heroism that day: A retired mechanic rushed one of the attackers and grabbed his weapon.

By adopting the Sustainable Harnessing of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (Shanti) Act of 2025, which subsumes and replaces both the Atomic Energy Act of 1962 and Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act of 2010, India is set to align its legal framework for nuclear power generation with standard global practices. Since this move could give atomic reactors a role in our transition to clean energy, it is welcome.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: As the India-Oman free trade agreement (FTA) is set to be signed on Thursday during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Muscat, the deal is being positioned as a key pillar of India’s expanding economic and strategic engagement with the Gulf, even as its immediate trade upside remains measured by the size of Oman’s market. The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) will be the final stop of the Prime Minister’s three-nation tour, which included Jordan and Ethiopia.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In September last year, more than 1,400 people filled the streets in Sydney’s world-famous Bondi Beach neighborhood to celebrate the opening of a new synagogue and community center. It was a different scene on Tuesday, just days after two gunmen killed 15 people and injured more than three dozen people at a nearby Hanukkah festival, including two rabbis affiliated with the Chabad of Bondi center.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. SYDNEY—Arsen Ostrovsky’s wife and two young daughters were getting ready for the lighting of Hanukkah candles at Sydney’s scenic Bondi Beach on Sunday evening when Ostrovsky wandered off to get some food from a nearby stall. Then, at around 6:45 p.m., shots rang out.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The father and son accused in Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly 30 years had six licensed firearms at the scene, police said Monday, as emerging details about the attack spurred calls to strengthen the country’s gun laws. The assault by two gunmen on a Hanukkah celebration Sunday at Sydney’s Bondi Beach killed 15 people and stunned a country with strict firearms regulations and little gun violence.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. When global rating agencies revised their sovereign debt ratings for France and Portugal earlier this year, aligning them with those of Care Ratings, they “vindicated" the stance of the Indian rating agency that launched its fledgling sovereign rating business just over a year ago, a top official at Care Ratings said.

China’s role as the world’s big factory isn’t weakening in the face of the US’s tariff-policy pushback. Its trade surplus is set for a record high in 2025, with exports exceeding imports by nearly $1.1 trillion in the first 11 months of the year, according to official data released on Monday, topping the trillion-dollar mark for the first time. Sure, its exports to the US slumped about 29% from a year earlier in November, but this was more than offset by export expansion to other markets.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: Cricketer Virat Kohli has invested ₹40 crore to pick up a minority stake in Agilitas Sports, joining the company as an investor and business partner. As part of the deal, Agilitas has acquired One8, the cricketer’s sportswear brand.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Sachin Tendulkar, arguably the greatest batsman of all time, hit a rough patch in 2003–04. He was repeatedly getting out to deliveries outside the off stump, especially while playing the cover drive, his signature stroke.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Underneath a ridge in the southern highlands of Guinea, a west African country of 14m people, lies one of the world’s biggest deposits of iron ore. Mining of the sprawling 3bn-tonne deposit, which would be worth some $315bn at current market prices, has been on hold for nearly 30 years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For most of 2025, Lakshya Sen was trying to put the jagged pieces of the puzzle in place. There were times when he was lacking physically, others when he struggled mentally.

A week before Australia’s social media ban for under-16s kicks in, Meta has started pushing underage Australians off its Instagram, Facebook and Threads platforms.The ban, which comes into effect on 10 December, is aimed at shielding children from harmful content. Social media being what it is, the rest of the world is watching what many consider a doomed experiment. Age-faking has been a common practice for the underage to gain access to platforms and many under-16s are aware of VPN and other hacks to get around digital walls.