Veer Bal Diwas 2025: Honouring courage, sacrifice and young role models

The Ministry of Women and Child Development will observe Veer Bal Diwas at the national level on December 26, paying tribute to the courage, sacrifice and enduring values of India’s young heroes. The occasion also coincides with the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2025, one of the country’s highest civilian honours for children, celebrating extraordinary achievements across multiple fields.

Good Governance Day 2025: Focus on transparency, technology and citizen-centric administration

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, and Minister of State in the PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh, inaugurated the National Workshop on Good Governance Practices 2025 in New Delhi. The event was organised on December 25, coinciding with Good Governance Day, and brought together senior civil servants, policymakers and institutional stakeholders to review reforms and share best practices.

A Long-Awaited Reset in India’s Nuclear Journey

Parliament’s passage of the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Bill marks a decisive attempt to reboot India’s stalled civil nuclear programme. Despite early technological ambition, legal uncertainty, liability fears and regulatory ambiguity kept investment and global collaboration limited. SHANTI seeks to replace this fragmented architecture with a coherent framework, aiming to make nuclear power a core pillar of India’s clean energy mix, with a target of 100 GW by 2047.

A Structural Redesign of the H-1B System

The United States has announced a fundamental overhaul of the H-1B visa programme, scrapping the long-standing lottery system and replacing it with a weighted, wage-based selection model. Effective from February 27, 2026, the change will apply to the FY 2027 H-1B cap cycle, covering around 85,000 visas annually. While framed as a move towards “merit-based” migration, the reform carries major implications for India, which accounts for over 70% of H-1B recipients.

A Turning Point in Global Oil Pricing

For decades, global oil prices were shaped primarily by production decisions taken by OPEC and its allies (OPEC+). That assumption was decisively challenged in 2025, when China, the world’s largest crude oil importer, emerged not merely as a price-taker but as a price stabiliser. Instead of altering output, China influenced prices through strategic use of crude oil storage, shaping both the floor and ceiling of the market.