It was never really about the politics

It only looks like it is. Ask anyone what is wrong with the world today. You will get a political answer. Here is why that answer, however understandable, is incomplete.  A global survey by FGS Global, covering 20,000 people across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, and Japan, found that 73 percent believe life…

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How great leaders move between both

I once coached a senior leader who looked like leadership itself. Crisp suit, crisp speech, crisp opinions. In meetings, people sat up straighter when he spoke. After one particularly “successful” townhall, he told me, “They love me. They were glued.” Then, a week later, his deputy walked in with a quiet complaint: “Sir, they clap,…

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What a month!

As a viral meme says, March isn’t over yet, but what a month it’s been. We’re living through the biggest oil shock ever, and stock market carnage. Why? Because US and Israel took out Ayatollah Khamenei. Just like that, amid a charade of negotiations. Last time someone killed a king – ok, heir – we…

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Word, as it were

For some time now, neuroscientists worldwide have been peering into brains to see how reading from books compares with screen reading, even if you are reading an e-book or e-paper. Researchers’ conclusions are emphatic – reading better, and retaining more, are best done via the physical ‘device’: book, newspaper, periodical. Not their electronic cousins. Nor…

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Awareness of death should not make us gloomy

By Swami Sukhabodhananda Life is a sacred interval between two profound events, birth and death. At birth, we enter this world innocent, unburdened by fear, untouched by anxiety. A newborn does not worry about reputation, loss or tomorrow. There is pure presence. Yet somewhere along the journey, fear quietly enters. And the greatest of all…

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A beginner’s guide to conducting an affair

Invisibility cloaks, and trains arriving at Platform No. Nine and Three-Quarters, should ideally be a part of the extramarital universe. Affairs run on adrenaline and banana peels. One slip, and you are running between divorce lawyers and paternity tests. If the tryst itself consists of soft music, dim lights, and a lot of eye contact,…

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Kids & smartphones: The smart solution

A jury in California, recently, did something courts rarely do: it looked at the internet, and saw, not a medium, but a machine. It found Meta and YouTube negligent – holding that infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendation were not harmless conveniences, but engineered compulsions that harmed young users’ mental health. The damages were modest. The…

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The molecule India has been waiting for

Somewhere in a Pune laboratory, two methanol molecules are being stripped of a water molecule and fused into something quietly significant. The product is dimethyl ether, DME. The process is indigenous. The patent is Indian. And the timing, though few have said so plainly, could not be more deliberate. Wars do not just redraw borders….

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