The Mecca Pact: A New Shield, or a Strategic Mirage?
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, signed on 7 August 2026 by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan, is being described as the embryo of an “Islamic NATO”. That description is politically dramatic but strategically premature. The agreement is undoubtedly significant: it declares that an armed attack on one signatory will be regarded as an attack on […]
Gen Z Is Not a Lab to Capture: Bhagwat’s Soft Words Cannot Hide Hard Realities
The spectacle was carefully staged. Nearly two thousand teenagers from a hundred cities were summoned to Mumbai’s glittering Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre. The RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, stood before them and delivered lines that would make any liberal applaud. Protesting youth are not anti-national. Their grievances over examination scandals and a commercialised education system […]
Shadows Over the Present: Why 1945’s Nuclear Warning Demands Action in a Fractured World
Eighty-one years after the atomic flashes over Hiroshima and Nagasaki transformed two thriving Japanese cities into charred, radiation-soaked wastes, humanity finds itself standing before a dangerously familiar precipice. What was once commemorated as the grim conclusion to a world war has increasingly turned into a haunting prologue to our contemporary geopolitical reality. Today, as active […]
When the Sangh Speaks to Gen Z: Outreach or Containment?
RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s scheduled interaction with more than 2,000 high-school and college students in Mumbai on August 6 is no ordinary outreach. Taking place at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre to mark the 15th anniversary of the India’s International Movement to Unite Nations, the dialogue carries the theme “The Role of Youth in […]
A Fortress Falls in Patna: What Bankipur’s Verdict Really Means
In the heart of Patna, a seat that had remained impregnable for more than three decades has changed hands. Bankipur, long regarded as one of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s safest urban strongholds in Bihar, has elected Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor by a margin of nearly 19,000 votes. Kishor polled around 64,000 votes to […]
“Gaata Rahe Mera Dil”: Celebrating the Versatile Genius of Kishore Kumar on His 97th Birth Anniversary
On August 4, Indian cinema celebrates the 97th birth anniversary of Kishore Kumar—a legendary powerhouse who was not merely an artist, but a cultural institution. Born Abhas Kumar Ganguly in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, Kishore Da was the ultimate all-rounder: an actor, director, producer, screenwriter, lyricist, composer, and, above all, the undisputed king of playback singing. […]
When ‘Culture’ Becomes a Weapon Against Girls Who Speak
A 15-year-old’s angry words at a protest should not cost her safety, privacy or childhood. Yet that is precisely what the machinery of outrage, online mobs and selective policing has delivered.At Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, during the recent Gen Z protests, young women raised their voices against the government. Videos circulated. Within hours, the response was […]
A Day to Honour Quiet Builders: The Anglo-Indian Contribution to India and Beyond
On August 2 each year, Anglo-Indians across India and the diaspora mark World Anglo-Indian Day. The occasion commemorates not only a community of mixed European and Indian ancestry but a people whose service has left an enduring imprint on the subcontinent and reached far beyond its shores. The date recalls 2 August 1935, when the […]
The Saffron Veil Over Learning: How Ideological Capture Threatens India’s Intellectual Future
India’s education system stands at a dangerous crossroads. What began as an ideological project of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to “decolonise the Indian mind,” integrate a selective Indian Knowledge System, and foster pride rooted in Hindutva has steadily moved from the margins of its own school network into the mainstream of public schooling and […]
Shahenshah-e-Tarannum: Remembering Mohammed Rafi on His 46th Death Anniversary
Zindagi to bewafa hai ek din thukrayegiZindagi to bewafa hai ek din thukrayegiMaut mehbooba haiMaut mehbooba hai apne saath lekar jayegiMar ke jeene ki ada jo duniya ko sikhlayegaWo Muqaddar ka SikandarWo Muqaddar ka Sikandar janeman kahlayega (Life, a fleeting mistress, will one day turn away,Life, a fleeting mistress, will one day turn away.Death, my […]
