New Delhi: (Oct 5) A joint military exercise involving troops of India and the UAE began on Monday in Uttarakhand, aiming to enhance interoperability, mutual understanding and cooperation, with a focus on mountain warfare. A total of 92 personnel, with equal representation from both armies, are participating in ‘Exercise Mountain Guardian’. The Indian Army contingent…
Special Correspondent Speak Up, Don’t Just Cheer Reforms in the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) will remain a distant dream unless every stakeholder who claims to be concerned about the game finds the courage to speak up. Sitting on the sidelines, applauding those who raise uncomfortable questions and privately agreeing with them, will not clean up…
N Nagarajan Names in our multicultural India can often play havoc with our official lives. The mere mention of the Election Commission’s SIR—Special Intensive Revision—now sends shivers down the spine of many people who have discovered, sometimes rather late, that their names do not remain the same across different records. Let me begin with my…
MS Sparsha When one hears of the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF), the first thought that comes to mind is gold. But buried deep beneath those famous gold mines lies a remarkable chapter in India’s scientific history—a story in which Indian scientists went underground not in search of precious metal, but in pursuit of one of…
Is the global economy once again approaching a point where its shock absorbers are wearing thin? That is the uncomfortable question the latest warnings about recession, stubborn inflation, geopolitical conflicts, elevated asset valuations and mounting sovereign debt should force policymakers and markets to confront. Nobel laureate Michael Spence’s warning that the world could be only…
On 15 August 1971, the United States closed the gold window, ending the convertibility of the dollar into gold at a fixed price and marking the effective collapse of the Bretton Woods system established in 1944. Fifty-five years later, US long-term interest rates have returned to levels last sustained in the early 2000s: the 30-year…
The battlefield of Kurukshetra had become a theatre not merely of physical conflict but of human psychology, political calculation, moral uncertainty, and destiny. As the two armies stood prepared for war, every movement, every formation, and every word carried significance. The opening verses of the Bhagavad Gita reveal that the war was already being fought…
Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta, associated above all with Sri Rāmānuja, represents a profound attempt to unite philosophical knowledge, spiritual devotion and responsible human action. The word Viśiṣṭādvaita is commonly rendered as “qualified non-dualism,” although a more illuminating interpretation is the “non-duality of the qualified whole.” Rāmānuja affirmed the unity of ultimate reality without denying the reality of…
Lakshmanrao Upadhyayula The revered sage Vishwamitra, invoking the majestic cadence of the Tristubh chandas in the hymns of the Rigveda, offers a profound invitation to Indra, the sovereign of divine strength, protector of righteousness, and guardian of cosmic harmony. The Vedic sacrifice is not merely an external ritual but a sacred communion between humanity and…
King Yudhishthira, the embodiment of righteousness, stood consumed by anguish. His eyes, reddened with grief and indignation, were fixed upon Arjuna with a gaze that pierced deeper than any weapon. His words, born from humiliation rather than hatred, flowed with the weight of unbearable disappointment. “If your resolve has come to this,” he declared, “then…
