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PastForward

PastForward is a deep research offering from ThePrint on issues from India’s modern history that continue to guide the present and determine the future. As William Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Indians are now hungrier and curiouser to know what brought us to key issues of the day. 
For now, this is available immediately to all ThePrint readers. Very soon PastForward will be among the premium offerings that go behind a paywall, only available to subscribers.

Gun-toting IAS trainee vs academy director. 1981 scandal shaped dissent in civil services

+TFP Vandana Menon -
In 1981, a drunk IAS probationer terrorised peers with a gun during a Himalayan trek. When Home Ministry didn’t act, academy head PS Appu quit in protest, setting off storm in Parliament.
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1800s Kolkata is key to Modi’s Act East policy. It needs imagination, not just bureaucracy

+TFP Praveen Swami -
A globalised India is a project of imagination. It must model itself after 19th century Kolkata, as it seeks to integrate with the economic powerhouses to its East.
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George Mallory’s Everest climb was no macho heroism—It was rooted in racism, war, tragedy

+TFP Praveen Swami -
In 1999, Mallory’s mummified body was retrieved from the ice, with signs of injuries suggesting he was killed in a fall. The body of his climbing partner Sandy Irvine was never found.
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The spy who sold out Subhas Chandra Bose—he worked with Britain, Germany, USSR, Japan, Italy

Praveen Swami -
The collapse of the Japanese in Burma and the death of Bose, brought the curtain down on Talwar’s incredible career—one that had seen him work for 3 Axis intelligence services & 2 Allied ones.
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This is why Nehru-Liaquat Pact failed. Its ghost haunted Indian politics for decades

+TFP Apoorva Mandhani -
It was either war or exchange of population—and Nehru wanted neither. So he devised a third option.
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Indian politicians hit the jackpot with 1957 TISCO case. It set the tone for political funding

+TFP Apoorva Mandhani -
Electoral bonds have done what past innovations in party funding couldn’t — they have sprung the issue of party funding onto the national stage.
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Rabinder Singh spy scandal exposed R&AW’s ugly sides. But India hasn’t learned from its mistakes

+TFP Praveen Swami -
Vishal Bhardwaj's Khufiya touches on the penetration of R&AW. The reel-world denouement, though, was quite different from the real-world ending.
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1967 was the year politics changed. Modi wants to go back to the simpler times before that

Vandana Menon -
Apart from One Nation, One Election, there is a strong similarity between 1967 and 2023—a dominant party at the helm, and a politics that’s bringing oddballs of opposition together.
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Duties, duties, duties. Modi is going back to the Indira Gandhi Emergency era

+TFP Vandana Menon -
Speaking in the Old Parliament for the last time, PM Modi said the Central Hall of Parliament inspires us to fulfil our duties. Earlier, he had changed Amrit Kaal to Kartavya Kaal.
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When Indira Gandhi nationalised foodgrain and failed — a disaster and a cautionary tale

Vandana Menon -
The contrast is glaring — Indira Gandhi tried to edge out private players & failed, while Modi tried to bring in private players through the now-repealed farm laws & also failed.
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Opinion

How Gen-Z is changing the violent extremist landscape online

Saman Ayesha Kidwai -
The evolving extremist threat now hinges on young people online, demanding new strategies beyond traditional counter-terror models.

Dalit dating in India is a choice between dignity and loneliness

To be proud or not to be — the question most Bengalis are wondering

Economy

India’s urban co-op banks are turning the page—crisis to cautious revival, one metric at a time

+TFP Udit Bubna -
With bad loans shrinking & capital buffers stronger, urban co-op banks’ new umbrella body NUCFDC is now prioritising rollout of digital transformation.

Defence

Greece looking at TATA’s WhAP infantry combat vehicle for army procurement

Snehesh Alex Philip -
If deal goes through, Greece will be 2nd foreign country to procure vehicle. Morocco was first; TATA Group has set up manufacturing unit there with minimum 30 percent indigenous content.

National Interest

A year-end Mea Culpa in National Interest—The Army-Islam combo doesn’t kill democracy

Shekhar Gupta -
Many of you might think I got something so wrong in National Interest pieces written this year. I might disagree! But some deserve a Mea Culpa. I’d deal with the most recent this week.

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