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The Long Arm of the Law
The recent conviction of Amit Jogi underscores how, despite delays and distortions, India’s justice system can still bring the powerful to account Amit Jogi The complexities of India’s judicial system, and its eventual credibility, are best illustrated not in abstract doctrine but in the fate of the powerful. Few propositions are more frequently doubted and more intermittently vindicated than the idea that the law can reach those once thought untouchable. The recent convictio

Kiran D. Tare
4 days ago9 min read


A War Without Fronts
Iran’s multi-front strategy of blending proxies, cyberattacks and economic pressure shows how hybrid warfare is emerging as a complex challenge for international security. Sometime last month, four ambulances engaged in humanitarian service were set ablaze on the streets of North London. These vehicles belonged to a Jewish volunteer organization dedicated to saving lives in medical emergencies, without discrimination of religion or race. The very next day, in Bahrain, an Iran

Akhilesh Sinha
Apr 48 min read


The Right to Let Go
With the Harish Rana case, the Supreme Court has turned a philosophical right into a practical pathway, redefining dignity at the end of life. For years, India’s debate over euthanasia lingered in the realm of theory while being ethically fraught, legally ambiguous and emotionally charged. Now, with its verdict in the Harish Rana case, the Supreme Court has moved the question from abstraction to application. In doing so, it has redrawn the boundaries of life, death and dignit
Quaid Najmi
Mar 2810 min read


Scam Republics of the Mekong
Cyber fraud, human trafficking and weak states have fused into a criminal ecosystem that even China’s heavy hand struggles to dismantle Chinese actor Wang Xing with Thai police authorities In January of this year, eleven members of the mafia family Ming were executed in China. Their crimes included homicide, illegal detention, and the operating of cyber scam centres across the border in Myanmar. Five members of the family Bai were sentenced to death back in November, and ther

Laurence Westwood
Mar 219 min read


War at Machine Speed
The US–Israel strikes on Iran have shown how artificial intelligence will dictate the future of warfare. Military history is punctuated by moments when technology abruptly shifts the balance of power. The machine gun, radar and nuclear weapons each transformed warfare in their time. Artificial intelligence now appears poised to join that list. Recent clashes involving Israel, the United States and Iran suggest that algorithms are beginning to shape the outcome of conflicts as

Akhilesh Sinha
Mar 148 min read


Addicted to Regime Change
From Roosevelt’s ‘big stick’ to today’s Tehran strikes, intervention has been the enduring grammar of American power After a week of relentless US-Israeli air strikes on Tehran, the war in the Middle East is threatening to blow up into a major regional conflagration. There is no let-up in retaliation from Iran either. President Donald Trump has declared that Washington must have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader, dismissing the possibility of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the

Shoumojit Banerjee
Mar 79 min read


Persepolis on the Edge
West Asia’s combustible geometry suggests that any strike on Iran has a habit of widening into systemic crises that no single power can neatly contain Barely eight months after Operation Midnight Hammer, Washington and Jerusalem have once more moved from calibrated warning shots to direct blows against Iran. In broad daylight on Saturday, Israel, with overt American participation, launched a “preventive attack” on Tehran, triggering an immediate exchange of missiles and pushi

Shoumojit Banerjee
Feb 2810 min read


Between Friends and Foes
Tarique Rahman’s ascent offers India and Bangladesh a chance to reset a relationship battered by ideology, geopolitics and neglect. On February 17, Bangladesh turned a new page following the return of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to power with Tarique Rahman emerging as the new Prime Minister. India extended unwavering support to its neighbour at this historic juncture, reigniting hopes for mending relations strained under Mohammad Yunus interim government. Prime Mi

Akhilesh Sinha
Feb 218 min read


Stone Sentinels of Power
UNESCO’s recognition elevates the Maratha fort network into global history as a model of terrain-led defence. Earlier this week, amid ceremonial rhythms in Paris, a piece of Indian history was quietly elevated to the global stage when Maharashtra’s Minister for Culture Ashish Shelar was presented with the official certification from UNESCO recognising a clutch of twelve forts which have played a key role in Maratha history as a World Heritage property. The newly inscribed p
Quaid Najmi
Feb 148 min read


Waiting for her Turn
It was not once, but thrice, that Maharashtra came close to having a woman as its chief minister. Destiny—and party calculus—intervened each time. As January drew to a close, 67 years after the state’s formation, Maharashtra finally saw its first woman deputy chief minister: a grieving Sunetra Pawar. The moment was marked not by celebration but by tragedy. She had lost her husband, the powerful Ajit Pawar, in an aircraft crash just days earlier. Her elevation came less from c

Aditi Pai
Feb 78 min read


NMIA, A Runway to the Future
From individual travellers to the regional economy, the Navi Mumbai International Airport is no longer just an infrastructure project but a lived experience. When Vineeta Garg boarded her flight for a year-end holiday, infrastructure was the last thing on her mind. An IT professional originally from New Delhi and now based in Pune, she was more concerned with the usual anxieties of air travel and the tensions that preceded it - traffic jams, long queues and frayed nerves. But

Bhalchandra Chorghade
Jan 317 min read


The Return of Imperial Temptation
As the Arctic thaws and power politics return, Greenland is no longer a peripheral curiosity but a test of Europe’s strategic nerve and America’s imperial impatience From Viking outposts to Cold War airstrips, Greenland has always mattered for reasons larger than itself. Geography has been its calling card. When Donald Trump stood before the World Economic Forum in Davos this week and declared Greenland as American territory, he was asserting maximalist leverage in a world wh

Shoumojit Banerjee
Jan 259 min read


Turning Raids into Electoral Gold
From the Singur protests to recent clashes with the ED Clashes, federal friction has fueled the TMC’s triumphs. In the lead-up to the 2026 West Bengal Assembly Elections, Akhilesh Sinha casts a spotlight on this unfolding political contest. West Bengal's political theatre has once again erupted with the thunder of enforcement raids. Earlier this month, When the Enforcement Directorate (ED) descended on the home and office of Prateek Jain, chief of political strategy firm I-PA

Akhilesh Sinha
Jan 179 min read


The New Grammar of Patriotism
Dhurandhar’s continuing box-office smash reveals how Bollywood’s patriotism has evolved from chest-thumping emotion to cool-headed statecraft. Bollywood has always moved in cycles. At one point, it obsessed over star-crossed lovers, in another phase, it was family melodramas or vigilante revenge. Yet one theme returns with almost metronomic regularity: the nation at war with itself or with others. Patriotism, in Hindi cinema, is not merely a genre but a barometer of national

Abhijit Joshi
Jan 108 min read


Reclaiming India’s Maritime Inheritance
As the INSV Kaundinya retraces an ancient sea route, Shoumojit Banerjee explores India’s rich maritime past and its disruption by European colonialism Two days before the New Year, as the winter sun settled over Porbandar’s harbour, a ship put to sea in a manner that would have been eminently recognisable along India’s western coast more than a millennium ago. There was no engine to mark its departure, no steel hull vibrating against the pier as the vessel slipped into the Ar

Shoumojit Banerjee
Jan 48 min read
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