The latest bypoll results have delivered a political message that the Congress and its INDIA bloc partners would ignore at their own peril. Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), an ally of the Congress in Tamil Nadu, won both Assembly seats, while the BJP registered victories in two West Bengal Assembly constituencies. These results may not settle…
There comes a time in the life of every civilisation when it must have the courage to revisit the stories it has been taught, separate history from hagiography and ask a simple but uncomfortable question: Are we honouring history—or merely inheriting a narrative? Bharat needs that debate today. The birth anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi…
The tragic death of an IIT Bombay student last week has once again opened a deeply uncomfortable debate: are some of Bharat’s finest educational institutions increasingly being dragged into caste and political narratives before the facts have been fully established? I raise this question deliberately—and as my personal view. Sahil Wakode, a second-year student at…
After watching Andhra Pradesh and national politics closely for nearly four decades, I have learnt one basic lesson: political parties are rarely born in a vacuum. Some emerge from a long ideological struggle, some from sustained organisational work, some from social movements—and some from a particular political moment that suddenly creates space for a new…
Tamil Nadu politics has a habit of declaring political winners and losers rather quickly. But if there is one national party that has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to absorb electoral setbacks and keep working towards a distant objective, it is the BJP. The 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election was certainly not the breakthrough the BJP…
The Supreme Court is undoubtedly one of the most important institutions in a democracy. Its responsibility extends beyond interpreting laws; it also has to strike a delicate balance between individual rights, institutional accountability and the larger requirement of maintaining public order. In my view, that balance becomes particularly important when legitimate grievances spill over into…
The 18th BRICS Summit, to be hosted by Bharat in New Delhi on September 12–13, could turn out to be far more politically uncomfortable for China than Beijing may have anticipated. With President Xi Jinping expected to lead a large Chinese delegation, the devastating Himalayan catastrophe on the Tibet-Nepal border is likely to cast a…
For decades, Bharatiyas have been fed a remarkably convenient version of the freedom struggle: the Congress fought the British, Mahatma Gandhi led the nation, Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister and, almost as a natural consequence, the British packed their bags and left. Now, the time has come to call that bluff—particularly in the…
I have listened to several Independence Day speeches from the ramparts of the Red Fort over the years. Some were ceremonial, some political, some predictable, and a few genuinely memorable. But, having heard Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address this year, I came away with a distinct feeling: this was not merely a speech to mark…
The other day, a friend called me to discuss the prevailing political climate in Telangana. His curiosity was straightforward: Does the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) still have a realistic chance of bouncing back to power? My answer was equally straightforward: I remain doubtful. He wanted to know why. I asked him a simple counter-question: What…
