The Union Home Ministry’s reported directive to States and Union Territories to accord Vande Mataram the same ceremonial respect as Jana Gana Mana at official functions is more than a bureaucratic instruction. It is a cultural statement—one that reopens an old debate about history, identity and political intent. To understand why this move carries emotional…
Pakistan’s sudden U-turn on playing India in the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup was neither sporting goodwill nor diplomatic maturity. It was a reluctant retreat, forced by hard realities the Pakistan Cricket Board and the Shehbaz Sharif government can neither deny nor escape. Behind the loud rhetoric, moral posturing and manufactured outrage lay an uncomfortable…
Is the Opposition serious—or merely staging another episode of parliamentary theatre? The INDIA bloc’s reported decision to move a resolution seeking the removal of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla is less a constitutional exercise and more a political joke played in broad daylight. Cloaked in procedural language and inflated rhetoric, the move exposes not the…
For decades, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has been portrayed—often caricatured—as the dark force behind India’s so-called “majoritarian project.” Its Sarsanghchalak, Mohan Bhagwat, is routinely projected by sections of the Opposition ecosystem as the real villain of India’s political churn. And yet, on Sunday in Mumbai, something quietly disruptive happened: people actually listened. Not through hostile…
At a time when global central banks are oscillating between inflation anxiety and growth fatigue, the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to hold the repo rate steady has invited predictable criticism. With the Indian rupee under pressure against the US dollar and global financial conditions tightening, the expectation in some quarters was that the RBI…
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reply to the Presidential Address in the Rajya Sabha was not merely a political rebuttal—it was a forensic dissection of a party that ruled India for most of its post-Independence history, yet left behind a legacy of stagnation, entitlement, and institutional decay. This came after his entry was stalled by some…
Democracy is tested not only by the strength of its laws, but by the conduct of those entrusted to uphold them. On Wednesday, India witnessed a troubling convergence of four incidents across its highest political and constitutional spaces—each distinct in form, yet united by a common thread of eroding institutional decorum. Together, they raised an…
On a day when India stood at the cusp of a renewed strategic and economic moment with the United States—marked by US President Donald Trump formally announcing a trade agreement after a late-night call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi—the spectacle inside Parliament told a very different story. After earlier floating tariff threats of 50 percent…
The Budget Session of Parliament was always expected to be noisy. What it did not need was a manufactured storm around selective, unofficial excerpts from the yet-to-be-cleared memoirs of former Army Chief General M.M. Naravane, dragged into the House to score political points rather than to illuminate policy. On the second day of proceedings, instead…
The Union Budget FY26–27 stands as a transformational document—one that goes beyond mere allocation of funds to chart a clear trajectory for India’s economic and strategic future. Notably, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has set a record by presenting the budget for the ninth time, a milestone many believe will be difficult to surpass. Against…
