For generations, Indian traditions such as homas and yajnas have often been dismissed in some quarters as superstition, blind faith or meaningless ritual. But what happens when something embedded in an ancient tradition is subjected to a scientific experiment and produces a measurable result? That is precisely where the conversation about havan smoke becomes interesting….
History has a curious way of leaving clues in places historians sometimes overlook. One such clue may be standing quietly in our fields: the Indian humped cattle, or zebu. For more than a century, the idea that a nomadic race of “Aryans” invaded India around 1500 BCE, destroyed the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), and introduced…
For nearly 460 years, generations have looked at a map of the world without necessarily realising that they were looking at a mathematical compromise. The familiar world map was never designed to show the true size of countries and continents. It was created primarily to help sailors navigate. Yet a navigational tool gradually became something…
Rajarao Pochiraju 2026 may well go down as a landmark year in Bharat’s technology journey—not merely because of another breakthrough in space, digital technology or artificial intelligence, but because a young Indian private company has ventured into one of the most difficult frontiers of modern science: nuclear fusion. Bengaluru-based Pranos Fusion’s PRAGYA, described as India’s…
There are some infrastructure projects whose importance goes far beyond the concrete, steel and wires that go into building them. They change the destiny of an entire region. The Srinagar–Alusteng–Drass–Kargil–Khaltsi–Leh 220 kV Transmission Line is one such project. On February 3, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally dedicated this remarkable piece of high-altitude infrastructure to…
For decades, the India-China dispute has been described primarily as a territorial and strategic contest. But a new dimension is becoming impossible to ignore: water. As Beijing intensifies its activities on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra, the river is emerging as an increasingly important component of the geopolitical contest between New Delhi and Beijing….
The claim that “Dalits were denied education and only Brahmins had access to schools” is repeated so frequently that it has acquired the appearance of historical fact. But history is rarely so simple. The educational landscape of pre-colonial and early colonial India was considerably more diverse, and surviving records provide important evidence that challenges sweeping…
As Bharat prepares to celebrate its 80th Independence Day, I find myself looking at the nation’s technological journey not merely as a journalist, but as a former IITian who had the opportunity to work with institutions such as Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL). The transformation I have witnessed over the decades is extraordinary. What was once…
Every new government inherits an economy. Yet political arguments about economic performance often begin by comparing where one government left the country with where another eventually took it—without asking the most basic question: what was the starting line? That question becomes particularly relevant when comparing the economic inheritances of Manmohan Singh in 2004 and Narendra…
Indian politics thrives on narratives. Every election throws up fresh slogans, accusations and counter-accusations. But beyond the din of political rhetoric lies a far more consequential question that deserves a serious national debate: Who created the ecosystem that enabled some of India’s biggest financial offenders to secure enormous loans from public sector banks, despite warning…
