The reported killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a coordinated U.S.–Iraq military operation marks a dangerous inflection point in West Asian geopolitics. Whether justified in Washington as pre-emptive security or regime-neutralisation, the elimination of the head of a sovereign state detonates a far larger question: what remains of the international order when…

When a so-called nuclear-armed state declares “open war” on social media, it isn’t projecting strength. It is advertising instability. That is precisely what Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif did when he thundered that it was now “open war” between Pakistan and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The outburst followed renewed border clashes after Pakistani airstrikes in eastern Afghan…

When Narendra Modi landed in Israel for his two-day visit, it was not merely another diplomatic engagement. It was a calibrated assertion of India’s evolving global stature — firm against terrorism, sensitive to humanitarian concerns, and balanced in its West Asian outreach. In a world increasingly fractured by conflict, Modi demonstrated that strategic clarity and…

The Supreme Court’s swift decision to take suo motu cognisance of a Class 8 NCERT textbook chapter on “corruption in the judiciary” has triggered a debate far larger than a school lesson. When Chief Justice Surya Kant declared, “I will not allow anyone on earth to taint the integrity of the institution,” it reflected a…

India has never lacked for faith. What it increasingly lacks is accountability from those who monetize it. The latest controversy surrounding Avimukteshwaranand is not an isolated embarrassment—it is part of a recurring pattern. A self-styled spiritual authority lays claim to exalted lineage, courts attention through provocative declarations, faces allegations or scrutiny, and then—almost on cue—discovers…

The debate over The Kerala Story 2 is no longer just about a film. It is about who gets to define “freedom of expression” in India — and more importantly, who decides which stories are allowed to be told. When Pinarayi Vijayan calls the film “false propaganda” and “poisonous,” he is entitled to his political…

When Narendra Modi chooses to speak, it is rarely accidental. He waits, measures the political wind, and then strikes with calibrated precision. His latest intervention — three days after the crass “shirtless protest” staged by the Youth Congress during the high-profile AI Summit at Bharat Mandapam — was vintage Modi: sharp, unsparing, and devastatingly timed….

When former Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane went on record in an exclusive interview with Republic TV to clarify that excerpts attributed to his yet-to-be-published book were unauthenticated—and that the manuscript itself is still awaiting mandatory clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs—it should have settled the matter. Instead, it has exposed something far…

At a time when artificial intelligence is increasingly defined by geopolitical rivalry, market monopolies and opaque algorithms, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unveiling of the MANAV Vision at Bharat Mandapam was not just another summit speech. It was a declaration of intent: India will not be a passive consumer of AI built elsewhere. It will shape…