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Sunday, July 20, 2025
TopicSilk Road

Topic: Silk Road

AI-enabled DNA ‘switches’ can now control gene functions in tissues, organs

ScientiFix, our weekly feature, offers you a summary of the top global science stories of the week, with links to their sources.

Dancing Shiva in Samarkand: Central Asian traders spread Hinduism, Buddhism along Silk Road

800 years before Babur, Hindu gods were worshipped by merchant diasporas in Central Asia.

We know very little of the Kushans— middlemen of silk road & empire that gave India Kanishka

In ‘The Stone Tower’, Riaz Dean blends aims to solve a 2,000-year-old riddle: Where was the Stone Tower, the lost landmark that represented the midpoint and thumping heart of the Silk Road?

China is trying to win over critics of the new Silk Road

BRI is yet to reframe its image as a responsible initiative. A good start would be to make it more transparent in its implementation.

What are we to make of China’s plans to build a Silk Road railway through the heart of Asia?

In China itself, rail traffic peaked in 2013 and has never quite recovered, despite an economy that’s grown by half since then.

How to travel the ancient cities that are part of the $800 billion Silk Road

Here’s everything you will need to do while exploring the authentic, less spoiled ancient cities of Silk Road.

China’s superpower potential could fizzle out before it’s fully realised

Measuring China's growth through a Western rubric is proving inadequate for a country that wants to be "anything but America". 

On Camera

Can Syria’s tiny Druze minority survive West Asia’s new storms? There’s little hope

Indians see West Asia as one uninterrupted wash of Islam, but the reality is more complex. For the Druze, support from Israel—where they are a recognised minority—is now critical.

India-US set to ink mini trade deal soon, reach understanding on agricultural & dairy products

Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.

Not just AK-203, India & Russia to jointly manufacture AK-19 and PPK-20 for domestic use and export 

India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.

Strategic partner one day, tactical nightmare the next: India’s learning Trumplomacy the hard way

Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.