scorecardresearch
Add as a preferred source on Google
Saturday, December 13, 2025
HomePastForward

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.

Hungry India, a nawabi US President, ‘Mexican blood’ — The real story of Green Revolution

Vandana Menon -
I don’t ever want us to have to beg for food again, Indira Gandhi said after a call with US President Lyndon Johnson. Science, Swaminathan and Subramanian made sure she didn’t have to.
Read more

Babri, Saraswati, Aryans – There are rival Indian histories now and campuses are the warzone

Vandana Menon -
What used to be ‘basement history’ is now mainstream in Lutyens’ Delhi. The ‘ivory tower' of the Left on academics is being contested by an ‘imaginative’ Right.
Read more

50 yrs of 1971 war: How forces, intel, politicians jointly made it India’s finest military hour

Snehesh Alex Philip -
On 16 December 1971, 93,000 Pakistani military and govt officials surrendered before Indian Army, ending the Bangladesh Liberation War that began on 3 December.
Read more

59 lives, 95 hearings, 60 crore — The Uphaar Cinema tragedy is a story of fire, fate and fight

Vandana Menon -
The 1997 Uphaar Cinema fire case in Delhi was behind a smokescreen for decades — evidence went missing, Ansal brothers suddenly turned ‘poor’, judges recused themselves. A verdict has finally come.
Read more

You are an OBC if you score 11/22 — We traced nearly 100 years of caste in Indian census

Vandana Menon -
Rajiv Gandhi called Mandal report a ‘can of worms’. India has tried to open it five times and shut it as quickly.
Read more

Mystery of 1966 Air India crash, that killed nuclear pioneer Bhabha, is unravelling bit by bit

Srijan Shukla -
Air India 101 crashed at Mont Blanc, at nearly the same spot as Air India 245 in 1950. Since the ’80s, big discoveries & bigger conspiracy theories have emerged.
Read more

The story of what really happened when Chinese troops ‘withdrew’ from Galwan Post 58 years back

Snehesh Alex Philip -
Months before the India-China war in 1962, an Army platoon held on to a post in Galwan despite being surrounded. The Chinese later moved back by about 200 m.
Read more

Sumdorong Chu, Ladakh-like India-China face-off which took 9 yrs to end but without violence

Nayanima Basu -
The 9 years saw diplomatic wrangling, a defiant Indian general keen on 'teaching the Chinese a lesson' & a PM more inclined towards diplomacy, but not a single drop of blood.
Read more

1994 Surat plague has many lessons for India on how to beat coronavirus

Mohana Basu -
ThePrint revisits events that led to the 1994 Surat plague and how the city emerged as one of India’s cleanest in the years to come.
Read more

Maqbool Bhat, Kashmir’s first radical separatist, hanged by Indira after diplomat’s killing

Srijan Shukla -
ThePrint looks at the life of Maqbool Bhat, who became the leader of the first generation of Kashmiri separatists.
Read more
1...345Page 4 of 5

On Camera

YourTurn

Opinion

Bangladesh polls and return of BNP’s Tarique Rahman—why Jamaat-e-Islami holds the key to both

Deep Halder -
The answer to the most pressing question in Bangladesh today depends on another question. Everyone is asking whether national elections will be held in...

A shame-faced modesty pervades 1991 reforms. This is strange and inappropriate: Ashok Desai

Faiz Hameed conviction is a message from Munir. He won’t tolerate sympathy for Imran Khan

Economy

Goa, Kerala lose sheen as more foreign tourists pick Maharashtra & Bengal, shows RBI data

Udit Bubna -
RBI data shows 26 states and Union Territories couldn’t regain pre-pandemic foreign tourist footfalls in 2024, but domestic tourism surged 27 percent compared to 2019.

Defence

US clears $686-mn package to breathe fresh life into Pakistani F-16s

Vaibhav Pant -
Of the total package, $649 million will be utilised for additional hardware, software, and support services, and the remaining for Major Defence Equipment (MDE).

National Interest

India’s top airline just handed sarkar the keys. That’s IndiGo’s real ‘crime’

Shekhar Gupta -
Don’t blame misfortune. This is colossal incompetence and insensitivity. So bad, heads would have rolled even in the old PSU-era Indian Airlines and Air India.

Follow us

Copyright © 2025 Printline Media Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved.