The Iran war is, by far, the most important military confrontation of the 21st century , and possibly the most important event of this century. What is at stake is no less than the global order. Specifically, the ability of US to maintain the order established in recent generations, that enabled a large part of…
Why age cannot wither the names Mir Jafar, Quisling, Judas. They haunt us across time As Kerala, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu go to polls, SIR has shrunk all their voter rolls. By 3.2%, 10%, and 11.5%, respectively, so far. Behind these cold numbers, lie countless human stories. TOI has reported, for example, that at…
When the government takes land to build big projects, should it stop caring about farmers after paying them a lot of money? A new airport is being built in Jewar, near Delhi. Because of this, many farmers got huge amounts of money for their land—some even got more than ₹20 crore! That has made them…
Some names never get forgotten — like Mir Jafar, Judas Iscariot, and Vidkun Quisling. Even today, their names are used to describe someone who betrays others. That’s because what they did hurt people deeply — they broke trust. Recently, in states like Kerala, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu, some people found their names missing from…
For the global economy, the Strait of Hormuz is less a waterway and more a jugular vein. As the conflict in West Asia intensifies, most nations are monitoring developments with bated breath, fearing a total blockade. Yet, in the wood-paneled corridors of New Delhi’s North Block, the mood is one of wary relief rather than…
In March, I arrived in St. Louis for a bridge tournament with my usual Danish and part‑Swedish team, but my head was elsewhere. My memoir had been published five months earlier, and the PR demands were consuming me. I did not feel mentally geared to summon what I call my “bridge brain” for a high‑level…
As India accelerates towards Viksit Bharat, the real question is not how fast we grow—but how sustainably our people can perform. India’s growth story is often told through numbers—GDP expansion, startup valuations, unicorn counts, digital infrastructure, and global capital inflows. These metrics signal momentum, ambition, and scale. Yet beneath them lies an unmeasured force that…
Imagine trying to understand how people live, but choosing to ignore some of them. That’s what might happen in India’s Census 2027. It plans to count couples living together without marriage as if they are married. So, it won’t show how many people are actually choosing live-in relationships. But these relationships do exist and are…
Census must not record live-in couples as ‘married’. It defeats the purpose of capturing social changes If a govt doesn’t measure x, does x not exist? Furthermore, what are the implications of govt refusing to measure x? Census 2027 will be recording live-in couples, who are staying in a household in a “stable union”, as…
The global landscape is littered with “Digital Transformation” projects that bought expensive software but forgot to upgrade the people. What is happening in Maharashtra today is a rarity in public administration: a true Whole-of-Government tech immersion. We are moving past the era where “tech” was a siloed department in a corner office. Instead, we have…