Why has the ongoing US-Iran confrontation suddenly gone strangely quiet? The thunderous rhetoric has faded. The threats have softened. Washington is no longer shouting from the rooftops, while Iran’s spiritual and political leadership appears equally reluctant to keep the microphone switched on. What happened? The simple answer is that geopolitics is not cricket. There are…
When disaster strikes a neighbour, there are two kinds of countries: those that calculate the diplomatic advantage and those that simply ask, “How can we help?” Bharat has traditionally belonged to the second category—and its swift response to the catastrophic floods in Nepal is a reminder of what genuine neighbourhood solidarity should look like. The…
The Congress party appears to have discovered a new national obsession: demanding explanations for what the Indian armed forces may or may not have done during Operation Sindoor. Its latest target is former Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan, whose off-the-cuff observation about the possibility of a Bharatiya drone striking the Kiran Hills area…
There are some development stories that do not make the headlines, yet they tell us more about a nation’s transformation than a hundred political speeches. What is happening in the cold, barren and unforgiving terrain of Ladakh is one such story. It is a reminder that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, the idea of…
The latest turbulence surrounding the US H-1B visa programme should force Bharat to confront an uncomfortable question: why are so many of our brightest young minds still convinced that their future must begin somewhere else? The answer cannot simply be a government advisory telling students to think twice before flying to America. Nor should New…
Chidambaram is no ordinary politician. As a former Union Minister and a legal luminary, he is fully aware that the idea of simultaneous elections is neither alien to Bharat’s Constitution nor an unprecedented experiment. The first four Lok Sabha elections—in 1952, 1957, 1962 and 1967—were held alongside State Assembly elections. The real question, therefore, is…
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval’s visit to Beijing should not be dressed up as some grand response to the latest twists and turns in global geopolitics. Nor should every diplomatic development involving Washington, Pyongyang, Islamabad, Riyadh or Ankara be dragged into a Bharat-China engagement that has a very specific purpose. Doval is travelling to Beijing…
The External Affairs Ministry’s decision to deny political clearance to Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s proposed visit to the United States may have triggered predictable political noise, but the decision itself deserves to be viewed with greater sobriety. It is neither unprecedented nor, by itself, evidence of hostility towards Telangana. It is a sovereign…
The Narendra Modi government’s aggressive move to secure urea imports and build adequate buffer stocks may look, at first glance, like an expensive exercise. It is anything but that. It is strategic insurance for Bharat’s farmers—and yet another example of Narendra Modi’s instinct to prepare for a crisis before it becomes one. The geopolitical environment…
The Madras High Court’s observation that there is no legal bar on Tamil Nadu playing its State song, Tamil Thai Vazhthu, before Vande Mataram or the National Anthem may appear, at first glance, to be a narrow question of protocol. It is not. It exposes a far more serious weakness in the way the Union…
