Columns

Only a fool  learns from  his own mistakes, said Otto von Bismarck, the wise man  learns from the mistakes of others. It is now time for policy makers in Himachal , who so far have refused to learn from either their own mistakes or that of Uttarakhand and Wayanad, to imbibe some lessons from the […]

UKBC – The Record of Our Existence, The Witness of Our Belonging On the eve of Janmashtami, with only a few days left before the curtain rises on UKBC 2026, I am writing this. This is not another emotional Bengali write-up. This is about responsibility. Across  25 different teams, people are quietly working day and

Last week’s article (I Spy, with…) elicited a number of interesting responses. One reader revealed that, in the 1960s, he had worked with John Cairncross – the fifth member of the Cambridge Five.  Cairncross had come to Karachi from FAO in Rome, as part of a Harvard Advisory Group to work with Pakistan’s Planning Commission.

The writing has been on the wall for quite some time, for all to see except perhaps the acolytes of the NDA government. India’s falling governance parameters over the last decade ( Press Freedom, Rule of Law, Inequality, Human Rights, Religious Freedom, Environmental Performance, Academic Freedom) all indicate a gradual structural collapse of the institutions

Now that we have an idea of what Mr. Modi looks like at the stroke of the midnight hour, and have also learnt how to install a teleprompter on a mobile phone, let us move on to some other aspects of the Jantar Mantar protests not yet reported upon. Nothing better exhibits, or symbolises, the

It’s not working. These days everybody and his grandfather wants to live to be a hundred, even if it’s in a hospital ICU. And if we continue to make babies at the current rate and impose an 18% GST on condoms (28% for flavoured condoms as they come under the category of fruits), by 2050

Any game, or contract, is based on and pre-supposes mutually accepted rules which govern, and bind, the participants. Democracy is one such contract, the ultimate social contract, in which the citizens (the ruled) give up their individual powers to the elected government (the ruler) in return for the protection of their rights, freedoms and the

Kuhu Joshi is the author of My Body Didn’t Come Before Me (Speaking Tiger, 2023). Her work has been published in Poetry, Best New Poets, Four Way Review, Rattle, South Carolina Review, and other publications. She earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she was a Jane Cooper Poetry Fellow and studied under the

I am a happy man these days, or at least as happy as anyone can be in this Ram rajya where even 1600 CTVs and 400 security guards could not prevent His abode from being looted by His own bhakts. To be clear, however: I am not happy because Mr. Pradhan has resigned as Education