Forthright
It’s election season again — that time when suddenly every political party discovers the existence of “minorities.” And by minorities, of course, they mean only one community — Muslims. The rest, like Jains, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, or Parsis, might as well be invisible. Their votes apparently don’t come in bulk or swing margins. Political mathematics,…
Why Bihar’s Minority Math May Seal NDA’s Fate — Not INDIA’s As Bihar heads toward its crucial assembly polls, all eyes are on the state’s most unpredictable vote bank — the 18% Muslim electorate. The battle lines are drawn, alliances are firm, and the question echoing through Patna’s humid air is deceptively simple: Who’ll split…
Pakistan is visibly rattled. India’s announcement of Exercise Trishul — a large-scale tri-service military operation off the Gujarat coast and in the sensitive Sir Creek sector — has triggered unease in Islamabad at a time when the country is grappling with multiple crises on its own soil. For India, the drill is routine strategic preparedness….
When the news broke that a Delhi High Court judge’s residence had turned into a vault of burnt currency, India didn’t just see a fire—it saw the moral decay of an institution once revered as the last bastion of integrity. Instead of ordering a police investigation, the Chief Justice of India chose an “internal inquiry”….
For over a decade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has redefined what it means to lead a nation — not just from the corridors of power, but from the frontlines of service. Every Diwali, while most leaders in the past preferred the comfort of official residences or political gatherings, Modi has chosen to spend the festival…
Bihar’s political script for 2025 seems to be writing itself — and the ending increasingly appears to favour the NDA. While confusion and friction continue to dominate the Congress-led INDI alliance, the Nitish Kumar–Narendra Modi combine has already moved into campaign overdrive with clarity, coordination, and confidence. The contrast could not be starker. On one…
It’s almost amusing how a certain breed of self-styled defence experts in India—perpetual cribbers and professional pessimists—find comfort in running down their own country’s military progress. Every indigenous success, every technological leap, every global acknowledgment of India’s growing might is met with skepticism, sarcasm, or silence. For them, the glass is never half full—it’s broken….
HAL’s Rise from Criticism to Cutting-Edge Innovation For decades, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was the easy punchline in India’s defence circles — a lumbering public sector giant accused of inefficiency, delays, and technological stagnation. Defence analysts routinely derided it as a relic of the license-raj era, incapable of producing world-class aircraft despite decades of government…
For decades, Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) — or Naxalism — bled India from within. Armed groups claimed to fight for the poor, but in truth, they unleashed a reign of terror across tribal belts, assassinating local leaders, extorting contractors, and running parallel “people’s courts.” Their false promise of “land to the tiller” was soaked in the…
India’s foreign policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has evolved into a masterclass in strategic ambiguity — a careful blend of pragmatism, restraint, and quiet assertion. Few recent moves illustrate this better than New Delhi extending an invitation to Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government, allowing Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to…
