Forthright
When the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a substantial portion of President Donald Trump’s emergency tariff regime, it did more than deliver a legal rebuke. It detonated the fiscal arithmetic of his administration, undercut his negotiating leverage abroad, and injected fresh uncertainty into global trade diplomacy—particularly the much-anticipated India–US trade deal. For…
Is a United States–Iran war imminent? The question no longer belongs to speculative think tanks alone. It is now being whispered in diplomatic corridors, debated in military circles, and nervously tracked in global markets. Seasoned Indian diplomat Deepak Vora and several former high-ranking military officials have publicly suggested that American strikes on Iran could be…
When a country of 140 crore people sets its sights on building sovereign capability in Artificial Intelligence, robotics, semiconductors and next-generation technologies, the stakes are far higher than campus bragging rights. National prestige, strategic autonomy and global credibility ride on every claim of “indigenous innovation.” That is why the controversy surrounding the display of a…
Few decisions test a government’s moral compass more than how it treats its wounded soldiers. A video now circulating widely shows the visibly distressed wife of a former senior Indian Army officer who lost a limb during the Kargil War. Her anguish is not theatrical. It is not partisan. It is personal. She claims that…
There is something almost poetic about the Congress party’s latest outrage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to Israel on February 25 has sent sections of the “grand old party” into a predictable fit of moral panic. One would think the Prime Minister was planning to relocate Seva Path (new address from South Block) to…
The plight of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has once again thrown a harsh spotlight on Pakistan’s fragile democratic framework and its uneasy civil-military balance. A Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawyer, deputed on the directive of the Supreme Court, recently met Khan in jail to assess his living conditions. The report that followed was disturbing:…
The Telangana municipal election results have triggered more than political chatter. They have sparked a raw, uncomfortable question within sections of the Hindu community — one that is being debated not just in Hyderabad drawing rooms but also among the Telugu diaspora abroad. A viral social media post, shared widely after the results, raised a…
The sweeping electoral victory of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party has fundamentally altered Bangladesh’s political landscape. At the center of this shift stands Tarique Rahman, who returned from nearly two decades of exile just before the passing of his mother, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. Crucially, the caretaker administration led by Muhammad Yunus withdrew the legal…
There was a time when entering Parliament required stature. Today, it sometimes appears all one needs is a slogan, a placard, and a reliable pair of vocal cords. The latest spectacle in the Lok Sabha would have been comic had it not been consequential. The Opposition has once again stalled proceedings while attempting to initiate…
The Supreme Court of India has once again put the spotlight on the principle of reservation — not by striking it down or expanding it, but by asking a fundamental question: should the benefits of caste-based reservations for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) continue to flow unabated through generations of the same families,…
