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Friday, November 21, 2025
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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.

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Opinion

Hasina’s was a trial in absentia, but not a trial without justice

Faisal Mahmud -
The Sheikh Hasina trial represents an inflection point in the struggle to place citizens above rulers and prevent the next massacre.

Not just Nehru, even Hindutva stems from Macaulay legacy

India has a geopolitical trilemma with Afghanistan. It’s not a good vs evil choice

Economy

At Charcha 2025: Local entrepreneurship, not just big IT, will drive next wave of distributed AI work

Mrinalini Dhyani -
While global corporations setting up GCCs in India continue to express confidence in availability of skilled AI engineers, the panel argued that India’s real challenge lies elsewhere.

Defence

IAF’s leased KC-135 lands in Agra, American firm’s pilots to man mid-air refuller

Snehesh Alex Philip -
India’s refueller fleet comprises six Russian Ilushin-78 tankers, first inducted in 2003, which are facing huge maintenance and serviceability issues.

National Interest

INDIA has a Congress-sized hole. And the fix begins with a little humility

Shekhar Gupta -
Without a Congress revival, there can be no challenge to the BJP pan-nationally. Modi’s party is growing, and almost entirely at the cost of the Congress.

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