The Union Budget FY26–27 stands as a transformational document—one that goes beyond mere allocation of funds to chart a clear trajectory for India’s economic and strategic future. Notably, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has set a record by presenting the budget for the ninth time, a milestone many believe will be difficult to surpass. Against…
When Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey for FY26, she did more than present a government report card. She laid out a data-backed rebuttal to a growing chorus of geopolitical grumbling—much of it emanating from Washington—that would have the world believe India’s economy is somehow “dead.” The Survey’s numbers tell a very…
The Supreme Court’s decision to stay the University Grants Commission’s newly notified Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Regulations, 2026 has triggered a familiar, and often polarised, debate in India’s academic and political circles, besides Prime Time debates in some so-called national English channels. On one side stand those who view the UGC’s move as…
For more than seven decades, the “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States has been one of the defining pillars of Western geopolitics. From NATO’s founding to intelligence-sharing through the Five Eyes alliance, and from the Cold War to the post-9/11 world, London and Washington have largely moved in strategic lockstep. Yet…
For nearly two decades, the India–European Union trade agreement lay frozen in the deep freezer of global diplomacy—18 long years of stalled negotiations, shifting governments, and clashing priorities. On Tuesday, that ice finally cracked. Yes, it can rightly be called the “mother of all deals.” What emerged was not merely a trade pact, but a…
When political ground begins to tremble beneath a ruling party’s feet, the instinct is rarely introspection. It is diversion. In Tamil Nadu today, that diversion has a familiar face: the resurrected spectre of “Hindi imposition.” Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s latest campaign rhetoric is less a cultural crusade and more a calculated attempt to rally an…
Every January, as winter sunlight softens the edges of India’s capital and the rumble of tanks meets the quiet awe of schoolchildren lining Rajpath, the nation pauses for more than a parade. Republic Day is not merely a celebration of constitutional ceremony. It is an annual audit of the Indian state itself — of what…
China’s latest claim that a single People’s Liberation Army soldier can control a swarm of more than 200 AI-enabled drones is designed to sound less like a military update and more like a declaration of technological supremacy. According to PLA-affiliated media and a test conducted by the National University of Defence Technology, the drones can…
The stage was grand. The symbolism, unsettling. A “Board of Peace” chaired by the President of the United States, Donald J Trump, with Pakistan—long scrutinized for its tangled history with extremist networks—occupying pride of place. And beside Trump, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, his presence on the dais framed as a diplomatic victory rather than…
When Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw publicly questioned the International Monetary Fund’s Artificial Intelligence Preparedness Index (AIPI), he was not merely disputing a number on a global leaderboard. He was challenging a worldview that still measures technological readiness through Western institutional lenses, often blind to the scale, speed, and democratic depth of India’s digital transformation. The…
