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By:

Anil D. Salve

21 March 2026 at 8:11:09 pm

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically...

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically make it true. We need the ability to verify information, understand its context, recognise its purpose and only then form an opinion. In the digital age, this ability has become one of the most important forms of wisdom. Social media has transformed the way information travels. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms have made communication faster, wider and more accessible. But the same speed that connects society can also overwhelm it. Information often reaches us before facts do. A headline is read before the full story. A short video is watched without knowing what happened before or after it. A photograph is circulated without its original context. A message arrives with the familiar words, “Forwarded as received,” and within minutes it may reach thousands of people. By the time the truth catches up, the rumour may already have done its work. The problem becomes even more serious when misinformation is deliberately created and circulated. Rumours may be planted not merely to mislead individuals but to divert public attention from an important issue, create suspicion, damage someone's reputation or push society towards a particular narrative. A distraction does not always need to be completely false. Sometimes a small piece of truth is mixed with exaggeration, selective facts or emotional language. The result can be more powerful than an outright lie because it appears believable. This is how narratives are manufactured. Social media platforms can become powerful tools in this process. A repeated claim begins to look familiar, and familiarity is often mistaken for truth. A provocative post attracts attention. Thousands of reactions create the impression that “everyone” believes it. One emotional video triggers another, comments intensify the mood, and before facts have an opportunity to speak, public sentiment may have already shifted. This is where mob psychology enters the picture. A society can move from calm to anger, suspicion to trust, or optimism to fear with surprising speed. People who would ordinarily think carefully may react differently when they see thousands of others expressing outrage, fear or hostility. The individual begins to follow the crowd, and the crowd begins to reinforce the individual. The danger is not limited to negative emotions. The same mechanism can also be used positively-to mobilise people for social causes, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, public awareness and community action. Technology itself is neither wise nor foolish. Its impact depends on how information is created, amplified and consumed. The greatest danger, therefore, is not that we have too much information. It is that we may lose the habit of thinking while consuming it. We are increasingly becoming consumers of information rather than creators of thought. Everyone has access to information today, but access does not necessarily mean understanding. The boundaries between a rumour and a report, an opinion and a fact, popularity and truth are becoming increasingly blurred. A post does not become true because thousands of people have liked it. A video does not become evidence merely because it has gone viral. An opinion does not become a fact because it is expressed confidently. An idea does not become correct simply because it confirms what we already believe. This last point deserves particular attention. We often accept information not because it is accurate, but because it is comfortable. We are naturally attracted to information that confirms our existing beliefs and suspicious of information that challenges them. In the digital world, this tendency can be amplified by algorithms that repeatedly expose us to content similar to what we have already watched, liked or shared. Gradually, we may find ourselves living inside an information bubble where we hear many voices-but mostly voices that agree with us. That is not diversity of information. It is an illusion of certainty. Discernment does not mean doubting everything. It means thinking before believing. It means asking simple but powerful questions: Who is saying this? What is the evidence? What is the context? What may be missing? Who benefits if I believe it? And have I heard the other side? These questions may take only a few seconds, but they can prevent hours, days or even years of misunderstanding. This responsibility is particularly important for the younger generation. Children today are growing up in an environment of unprecedented information exposure. They can encounter more information in a few hours than earlier generations might have encountered in weeks. Therefore, education cannot merely teach students how to collect, remember and reproduce information. It must teach them how to question, verify, analyse and interpret it. A student who can write the correct answer in an examination may be academically successful. But a student who knows how to ask the right question is better prepared for life. The classroom of the future must therefore produce not merely informed students, but thinking citizens. They must learn that forwarding a message is also a form of responsibility. Sharing a post is not an innocent act when it can affect someone's reputation, create public fear or influence social behaviour. The challenge becomes even greater in the age of Artificial Intelligence. AI can generate information, images, audio and video with extraordinary speed and sophistication. The distinction between what is real and what merely appears real may become increasingly difficult. In such a world, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less. Technology can produce an answer in seconds. It cannot automatically tell us whether that answer deserves our trust. Some answers require experience. Some require context. Many require the ability to think independently. We have more information, more technology and more connectivity than any previous generation. Yet our real challenge is to preserve something technology cannot manufacture for us: the capacity to think for ourselves. The ocean of information will only become larger. The question will no longer be, “How much information do we have?” The more important questions will be: What should we accept? What should we question? What should we verify? And what should we reject? No technology can completely answer these questions for us. No number of likes can substitute for evidence. No viral trend can replace judgment. No majority can turn misinformation into truth. That responsibility belongs to human beings. Information can tell us what happened. Discernment helps us understand what it means, why it happened, what may be missing from the story and how we should respond. Perhaps, therefore, the greatest educational challenge of our time is not to teach people how to find more information. They already know how to do that. The greater challenge is to teach them how to pause-to pause before believing, to pause before reacting, to pause before forwarding and to pause before joining the crowd. Because sometimes the most intelligent response to information is not an immediate reaction, but a moment of reflection. The ocean is already around us. It is growing deeper every day. What we need now is not more information to swim through it-but the wisdom to know which direction to take. (The writer is the Principal of Podar International School, Ausa, Latur. Views personal.)

Murky Mandate

Correspondent
Feb 10, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Feb 12, 2025

Prime Minister Albin Kurti claims a mandate, but Kosovo’s deep divisions and Western impatience may curb his ambitions.

Albin Kurti

Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, is no stranger to political turbulence. Having led his left-wing Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party to victory once again, he proclaims this as a confirmation of his governance. But his celebration may be premature. The vote count remains uncertain due to a malfunctioning electoral system, and while exit polls indicate his party leads with around 40 percent, that is a significant decline from its commanding 50 percent in 2021. More crucially, Kurti lacks a parliamentary majority, leaving Kosovo poised for another round of political brinkmanship.


While a government must be formed, the road ahead is fraught with obstacles. Kosovo’s constitution mandates that 10 out of the 120 parliamentary seats are allocated to the Serb minority, whose representatives refuse to cooperate with Kurti. A further 10 are reserved for other minorities, some of whom have previously sided with Vetevendosje. The opposition, a fractious mix of the centre-right Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), and the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), has made no secret of its desire to unseat Kurti, with the PDK already expressing optimism about its electoral performance.


Kurti’s political brand is both his strength and his weakness. His populist rhetoric and nationalist policies have strengthened his domestic support but alienated Kosovo’s Western backers. The European Union and the United States, traditionally Kosovo’s staunchest allies, have grown increasingly frustrated with his confrontational stance towards Serbia. Brussels and Washington favour a more pragmatic approach, urging dialogue and diplomatic engagement. Kurti, however, has taken a harder line, insisting on Kosovo’s sovereignty and resisting compromises that could placate Serbia or its international allies, including Russia. This has left Kosovo in a precarious position, reliant on Western support yet unwilling to bend to Western demands.


The opposition parties, sensing an opportunity, have campaigned on a more conciliatory approach. The centre-right LDK has advocated for Kosovo’s NATO membership and the restoration of warmer ties with the United States. The PDK, a party founded by former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas, also leans towards Western alignment but remains sceptical of Kurti’s unilateral style of governance. Ramush Haradinaj, leader of the AAK and a former prime minister, has already signalled his willingness to forge a broad opposition coalition to keep Kurti out of power.


Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after NATO ended Serbia’s crackdown on ethnic Albanians. While the US and most EU countries recognize it, Serbia, Russia, and China do not, thus blocking its EU ambitions and keeping it reliant on NATO’s KFOR peacekeepers.


Kurti’s electoral setback may reflect growing unease among Kosovars over economic stagnation. While his nationalist agenda has mobilised support, his government’s economic policies have faced criticism. Inflation has squeezed household incomes, and job creation remains sluggish. The opposition has seized on these grievances, offering a vision of economic stability and international reintegration that stands in contrast to Kurti’s defiant isolationism.


Kurti has ruled out cooperation with opposition parties, which may leave him scrambling for allies among Kosovo’s smaller ethnic minority groups. But even if he manages to form a government, his ability to enact policy will be constrained by a divided parliament and an increasingly impatient international community. The EU and the US have already expressed concerns about his handling of Kosovo’s Serb minority, and without their backing, his administration risks diplomatic paralysis.


Kosovo’s political deadlock reflects deeper structural issues. The country remains split along ethnic and ideological lines, with its institutions still fragile more than two decades after the war. As long as Kurti continues to prioritise nationalist fervour over pragmatic governance, Kosovo’s Western allies will grow more exasperated. And unless he finds a way to navigate Kosovo’s fractured political landscape, his latest victory may soon turn into a pyrrhic one.

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