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News in brief: East Europe

The latest defence developments in East Europe, as featured in the Blueprint magazine's January 2026 edition

Ed-tech firm LEAD Group targets partnering with 1,200 schools in 2026

With nearly 8,500 schools already on board, LEAD Group is planning its next growth phase ahead of a proposed FY28 IPO

Market radar: November 21, 2025 to December 22, 2025

The Business Standard Defence Index is designed to track the performance of 25 key defence stocks

Defence spending rises, but not its share in GDP

Operation Sindoor might prompt an increase in expenditure in the coming years

CONFLICT ZONE: Crisis in Syria

Foreign firepower at the fore

Power Arcade: Directed-energy military weapons

The latest directed-energy military weapons from around the world

To keep the peace

India's first Republic Day parade began the tradition of showcasing arms

Diplomatic doublethink

Shadi Hamid's argument for a world with the US as the sole hegemon is more confused than convincing

Blaze of glory

This is a first-person account of the serving Indian Navy officer who was awarded the Shaurya Chakra in 2025

Exploding sleeper cells of the sea

Naval mines have re-emerged as potent instruments of modern conflict but India is not immune to their destructive power

Arrowhead raises $3 mn to expand human-like voice AI for financial sales

The startup's human-like voice AI can handle long sales calls and, according to the company, delivers significantly higher conversion rates than human agents

Datanomics: Madhya Pradesh records few bacterial contamination cases

Madhya Pradesh recorded 40 cases of bacteriological contamination in water samples in 2025-26 as of January 2, 2026, accounting for 0.15 per cent of all cases in the country

Green cave in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district soon to boost tourism

Tourism in the region largely remained unexplored as the route to reach the green cave passes through terrain once controlled by Maoists

OECD Pillar Two safe-harbour rules offer limited relief to Indian MNEs

Tax experts say the extension is relevant for Indian MNEs with overseas operations, even though India itself has not yet implemented Pillar Two

DEA creates ₹17 trillion PPP project pipeline for 3 years: FinMin

Of the total projects, 232 are related to central ministries and departments, while the remaining 630 are with states and Union Territories

Surviving Climate Anxiety: A manifesto for flourishing in climate change

Guilt-driven environmentalism that favours moral absolutism and blames individuals for inaction on climate issues is the wrong approach to climate action

Align skills to reality: Adult Skills Survey 2026 will inform policy

This exercise is timely, given that nearly three-fourths of India's workforce has only basic schooling, and graduate employability is just around 55 per cent

Fast-tracking infrastructure: Further reductions in delays are needed

PRAGATI has shown that some of these failures can be overcome through sustained oversight

How quick must quick commerce be? Rethinking the 10-minute promise

A hard stop at 10 minutes puts lives at risk even if the distance from the dark store to an apartment is a just a few 100 metres

Cloudy skies over US-EU trade deals: India prepares for headwinds

Amid political turmoil in the US and EU, India's hopes of quick trade deals face growing uncertainty, calling for realism and preparation for worst-case scenarios