Amey Chitale

The victorious strategist wins first and then goes to battle Mumbai: Two years ago in Barbados, the scars of India’s crushing ODI World Cup final defeat still lingered and the drought of ICC titles weighed heavily. India had seized control in the middle overs, only to see it slip under Heinrich Klaasen’s fierce assault. With South Africa needing 30 off 30 balls and their in-form batter at the crease, momentum appeared lost. That was when he stepped in to halt the Proteas’ surge. His spells...

India’s latest defence budget marks a decisive tilt toward technology, but the weight of men and pensions still anchors reform. When India’s armed forces executed the Western Corridor offensive under Operation Sindoor in May 2025, the message was not merely tactical. It was fiscal as well. Precision strikes, networked surveillance and indigenous platforms revealed both the promise of home-grown capability and the urgency of accelerating technological change. The Union Budget for 2026–27...

By folding populist habits into a harder budgetary logic, India’s railways are discovering that reform is less about new trains than about financial realism. For decades after independence, the Railway Budget, presented separately from the Union Budget, became a theatrical exercise in political generosity, packed with announcements of new trains and pet projects designed to flatter local constituencies. The result was a sprawling system admired for its engineering prowess but crippled by...