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By Aakar Patel Mother of Democracy is standing for a non-permanent elected seat at the United Nations Security Council. Non-permanent because it is a two-year term and elected because 10 seats are shared between the 188 member states wanting to sit alongside the five permanent...

Dilip Cherian Governments, especially those with strong political instincts, usually respond to crises with tougher laws, tighter enforcement and louder messaging. Technology rarely becomes the headline act. That is why the decision to hand India’s examination reforms to Nandan Nilekani is more significant than it...

A debate is spreading across India. The Cockroach students movement recently succeeded within a few days at forcing change that traditional political parties have failed to achieve in years. The Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), a mere social media campaign started by Abhijit Dipke, is credited...

Better late than never. Two days after the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the Supreme Court has stated on 27 July 2026 that there cannot be police excesses or violence merely because there is an agitation. The three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice...

A quote from Milan Kundera goes thus: The final stage of a cultural movement is satire. When the people laugh at the powerful, the regime is already dead. The resignation of Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan 25 July in the wake of an unprecedented...

By Aakar Patel Many are puzzled by the size of the current protests and the speed with which they sprang up. To understand the environment that produced this anger, we need to set aside the immediate issue over which the youth have mobilised and step...

By Dilip Cherian What happens when the fence begins to eat the crop? In Delhi’s babu circles, this question is no longer rhetorical. Disputes over the Gymkhana Club and the Delhi Golf Club were largely about land, privilege and entitlement, but the Central Secretariat Club...

Roger Waters once wrote: Tide is turning; Satellite buzzing through the endless night; Exclusive to moonshots and world title fights; Imagine what it must be earning; Who is the strongest; Who is the best; Who holds the aces……….. Inevitably, the tide has to turn because...

The resignation of about 120 scientists and engineers from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), including those associated with top missions such as Gaganyaan, Chandrayaan-3 and the LVM-3 launch vehicle, should ring alarm bells for those who care about the country’s strategic ambitions. The government,...

As Parliament prepares to convene for the Monsoon Session on Monday, 20 July, the Modi government stands accused of shrinking the space for democratic dissent. The police intervention to end activist and educationist Sonam Wangchuk’s 21-day hunger strike at Jantar Mantar paints a disturbing picture....