He fits the bill. But it’s a tough call Should Modi mediate in the US-Israel vs Iran war? At least one head of govt, Finland’s president, has publicly said so. Some pundits have mused about this. More important, though, is Modi ticks all the mediator boxes. Let’s list them. He’s prominent on the global stage….
It is day 18 of the largest shipping disruption since WWII. I am looking at the dashboard www.hormuztracker.com: ~3,200 ships (4% global tonnage) idle in Gulf region and ~100 container ships (10% of global fleet) affected. “Probable cancellation and withholding of insurance cover in the face of calamity – doesn’t that contradict the spirit of…
The growth in the defence economy is the narrative of Uttar Pradesh (UP) over the past nine years.It is not merely a slogan, but a transformation of mind and action, realised on the ground. A state once viewed through the lens of limited potential and backwardness is today carving a new identity as a confluence…
An Iran–Israel–US conflict would not stop at the battlefield. Through polluted seas, disrupted shipping, fuel shocks, and damaged marine ecosystems, its environmental and economic aftershocks could hit the Indian subcontinent hard. A widening Iran–Israel–US conflict is often discussed in terms of missiles, deterrence, and oil prices. But that framework is far too narrow. Wars in…
I have coached leaders who can negotiate billion-rupee deals, handle crises with a straight face, and command rooms full of sceptics. Then, in the next breath, they confess something quietly human: “If I am not the one speaking, I feel irrelevant.” That sentence is not about strategy. It is about wiring. The podium is not…
Most of us are familiar with the popular Buddhist maxim, “what we think, we become.” The mind, much like the body, is ultimately the product of what it is fed, and unlike our bodies, our minds feed on thoughts for much of our waking hours. It is no surprise that the same maxim can be…
If one were to ask what is common to John Keats, Franz Kafka, D H Lawrence and George Orwell, those with even the slightest interest in English literature would know that they are all celebrated writers. However, there is another common thread binding them and that is the fact that they all died from tuberculosis….
Kerala’s Muslims have come far since 1921. The harder task is deciding where they go next The Muslim community in Kerala stands at a pivotal historical threshold. It has just navigated a century of organised social resurgence—an odyssey that began in the shadow of the 1921 Mappila resistance and the crushing weight of colonial repression….
The more one examines the governance of the Rajasthan government since it unseated the Congress administration more than two years ago, the more it appears that the five-year rule of Ashok Gehlot (2018–2023) was a wasted period for the state. Internal rifts within the party, particularly between the chief minister and the deputy chief minister,…
A couple’s art dwells in the world of coir workers and landscapes in retreat They say coir once left Neeravil, a remote village in Kollam beside Ashtamudi Lake, by water—bundles of fibre loaded onto country boats bound for Aspinwall & Co. in Kochi. There is something quietly circular about what has followed: The coir that…