National Interest

Much of the pre-2014 peace in our hotspots is diminished. Kashmir is the boil, Northeast anarchic.

The Modi government shows a fascination for rejecting everything Nehru stood for, while embracing his daughter's political economy. 

The original promise of demonetisation has evaporated. We didn't deserve to be hit by a 1,100-volt shock just to switch to digital payments.

India is complacent if not complicit as in 1975-77. Dangers are bigger now as we have a clear external enemy, strong economy and feckless opposition.

He knows he isn't the only one helpless. So is his army, given the near-impossibility of a coup in 2016.

India's declared strikes have questioned the sanctity of the LoC, raised the nuclear threshold and redefined strategic restraint

Modi has debunked uncontested old wisdom that foreign and strategic policy must follow broad national consensus despite change in governments.

India's bane is our easy embrace of mediocrity — from academia and science to business and military power. Sport is an apt metaphor.

Irom Sharmila without tubes is of no use to those who built careers around her. But she realised an activist alive was better for her cause than a dead one.

Indian and Pakistan have both followed a consistent policy of talk-talk, fight-fight since the Kashmir insurgency began in 1989. By invoking Balochistan and northern areas, Modi has changed it to 'you mess with our soft underbelly, we will mess with your most vulnerable region.