Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

HCA: Revolution or Return of Rogues?

The Hyderabad Cricket Association’s proposed TG20 league was supposed to be a revolution. For once, many believed Hyderabad cricket would finally escape the suffocating grip of middlemen, academy cartels, backdoor selectors, and the invisible power brokers who have reduced one of India’s proudest cricket centres into a marketplace of favouritism and manipulation. Instead, before the…

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

Bharat’s Solar Surge Changes Global Power Equation

For decades, Bharat was mocked as a country that would forever remain energy-hungry, import-dependent, and technologically trailing behind the developed world. Those predictions now lie shattered under the blazing Indian sun. Bharat, under the able and decisive leadership of Narendra Modi, has officially emerged as the world’s second-largest solar power market in terms of annual…

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

Demography Is Not a Political Toy

For decades, India avoided an uncomfortable conversation. Every time concerns were raised over unchecked illegal immigration and demographic shifts in sensitive regions, the issue was either dismissed as “communal politics” or buried under the rhetoric of vote-bank secularism. The latest decision by the Union government to constitute a high-level committee to study demographic changes across…

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

Reclaiming the Republic

The Union Government’s decision to reclaim the 27.3-acre land housing the Delhi Gymkhana Club has triggered outrage in elite circles, emotional appeals about “heritage,” and predictable accusations of state overreach. Yet stripped of sentimentality, the larger question confronting India is far more fundamental: can a developing nation of 140 crore people continue allowing vast tracts…

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

When Institutions Falter, Media Trials Become Inevitable

The rise of aggressive media scrutiny in India is not an accident. It is a consequence. A direct consequence of institutional paralysis, delayed justice, selective investigations, and the growing public perception that powerful individuals often receive extraordinary legal protection while ordinary citizens languish in procedural darkness for years. In such an atmosphere, what critics dismiss…

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

America’s Uncomfortable Decline

The world order is changing faster than many in Washington are willing to admit. The age when the United States could dictate terms to the world as the unquestioned “Big Brother” is steadily eroding. Ironically, the country that once projected itself as the defender of global order today appears increasingly desperate to preserve fading dominance….

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

End BCCI’s Protected Kingdom

For a government that proudly proclaims “zero tolerance towards corruption,” the continued exceptional treatment being extended to the Board of Control for Cricket in India is becoming increasingly difficult to defend. The time has come for the Narendra Modi-led NDA government to stop hiding behind technicalities and bring Indian cricket’s richest empire fully under public…

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

Revanth’s Political Fuel Leak

In politics, outrage is often cheaper than petrol. And in Telangana these days, both seem to be available in abundance. Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy recently chose to mount his high-octane attack on the Centre over rising petrol and diesel prices, demanding a rollback with all the theatrical flourish of a seasoned opposition campaigner. Fair…

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

Mission Divyastra Signals India’s Nuclear Leap

India’s latest successful test of a MIRV-capable Advanced Agni-V missile was not merely another routine missile launch. It was a strategic declaration that New Delhi is no longer content with symbolic deterrence. India is steadily building a sophisticated, survivable and technologically advanced nuclear architecture capable of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with major global powers. Conducted from Dr….

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Columnist M S Shanker, Orange News 9

India’s Mediation Moment in West Asia

The suggestion by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that India could emerge as a long-term mediator in the worsening West Asia crisis is not merely diplomatic courtesy. It reflects a changing geopolitical reality. The old power centres are exhausted, mistrusted, or too deeply invested in regional rivalries to act as honest brokers. Amid that vacuum,…

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