Forthright
Was it a political faux pas, a reckless gamble—or sheer arrogance? Whatever the answer, Karnataka Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar has every reason to regret his decision to re-induct B. Nagendra into his Cabinet. The minister’s resignation on August 28, barely 25 days after being brought back into government, has turned what Shivakumar projected as a…
₹6.15 lakh crore! The number is certainly spectacular enough to make headlines, trigger outrage and provide ready-made ammunition for those who want to portray the Modi government as the great benefactor of corporate defaulters. But there is just one small problem with the screaming headline: ₹6.15 lakh crore of loans written off by Public Sector…
The devastating flash floods that have struck Nepal’s Rasuwa region, killing scores (160 and 750 missing at the time of writing this edit) of people and leaving hundreds missing, are a grim reminder of the extraordinary vulnerability of the Himalayan region. They are also a warning against a dangerous tendency that must be resisted: turning…
The fog surrounding one of the most intriguing episodes of Operation Sindoor has finally lifted. Former Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan has now confirmed that a Bharatiya loitering munition did strike the Kirana Hills area in Pakistan during the 2025 operation. The clarification comes with an important caveat: the strike was not deliberately…
Bharat cannot afford the luxury of political denial when allegations of forced, fraudulent or inducement-based religious conversions are surfacing with disturbing frequency. The issue is not about targeting any particular faith. It is about protecting an individual’s freedom of conscience—and ensuring that nobody is bullied, blackmailed, deceived, financially induced or threatened into changing religion. That…
There are moments when politics must give way to humanity. This is one such moment for Pakistan. The appeal by 21 former international cricket captains, including India’s Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar, urging Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to ensure proper medical care for Imran Khan is not a political intervention. It is…
Perhaps Abhijit Dipke might have thought twice before christening his so-called Gen Z movement against the Modi Government’s education policies as the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)—if only he had remembered Amitabh Bachchan’s unforgettable cockroach lesson from Hum. Released in the early 1990s, the film had a famously irreverent dialogue about two varieties of cockroaches: those…
Bangladesh’s reported openness to joining the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement involving Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan deserves attention in Bharat—but certainly not panic. Dhaka has, at this stage, not formally joined the arrangement, and that distinction matters. The Makkah pact itself is still a relatively new security framework whose practical military architecture remains to be…
There was something almost comical about a recent viral video from Ladakh in which a middle-aged woman, reportedly 40, was seen allegedly misbehaving with personnel of the Indian armed forces guarding the nation’s borders—and apparently presenting herself as Gen Z. If this is where the “Gen Z” label has reached, perhaps the Election Commission should…
The United States Ambassador to Bharat, Sergio Gor, calling Jammu and Kashmir an “important part of Bharat” during his first visit to the Union Territory is certainly welcome. But should Bharat chest-thump over an American diplomat acknowledging what is an established constitutional and national position? Certainly not. Gor’s statement is diplomatically significant, particularly because Washington…
