Columns

Press Release & Video: India is becoming a nation of duffers and we’re evolving back to the neanderthal stage: Avay Shukla, Author ‘Holy Cows and Loose Cannons: The Duffer Zone Chronicles’ to Karan Thapar for The Wire. In an interview to mark the publication of his recent collection of blogs called ‘Holy Cows and Loose

THE whereabouts of Hitler’s charred remains are still a mystery. His spirit though has been reincarnated in numerous elected dictators, most recently in B. Netanyahu and N. Modi. No two modern leaders have shown such a flagrant disregard for societal norms, religious precepts, and legal undertakings. They deserve a Nobel Prize — for ethnic cleansing.

Despite the military’s technological prowess and tactical victories, India’s international standing collapsed under the weight of reckless media sensationalism, diplomatic overreach, and the unchecked proliferation of communal hate speech that alienated potential allies. Going beyond the nitpicking about the number of “assets” lost by India and Pakistan, it is now clear that we have inflicted

Going beyond the nit picking about the number of “assets” lost by India and Pakistan, it is now clear that we have inflicted significant losses on the latter. In doing so our defence forces have also demonstrated the technological and air power to enforce the Prime Minister’s stated resolve to extract a heavy price for

First, the context. It’s not working. The planet is headed for armageddon in this century itself if we continue with our present unsustainable life styles. The Paris Accord red line of 1.5* C temperature increase has been breached, CO2 levels have gone up by 125% above pre-industrial levels and at 425 ppm are approaching the

‘When the family is together, nothing is difficult.’ This is the underlying theme of Bollywood film journalist Bhawana Somaaya’s heart rending memoir ‘Farewell Karachi.’  I first came across this book through an Instagram post and I’m not embarrassed to admit that the blurbs on the front cover by Hrithik Roshan, Shobhaa De and Karan Johar

India’s true enemy is not Pakistan: it is hubris, the arrogance of a born-again bully. India emerged as a unified nation-state in 1947, the People’s Republic of China two years later. Both boast a heritage that is more than 5,000 years old. Yet each has spent the past seven decades struggling to resolve unfinished business

‘Jo ayega Nadaun, kon jaeyga Nadaun?’ This 19th century aphorism described the allure of the hill station of Nadaun, now in India’s Himachal Pradesh. In 1947, India got the Punjab Hill states. Pakistan received the equally irresistible scenery of Gilgit-Baltistan. Any disappointment at leaving Hunza is compensated by a cloudless view of Rakaposhi on the

The jury may still be out on whether India is an elected dictatorship, but it should be unanimous on the fact that it is a bureaucratic diktat-orship. For the last few few years our Ministries and their pen-pushers, denuded of any role in any sane policy formulation, have been passing their time in issuing all kinds of