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The FinePrint

Free will, dissent, defiance – signs of democracy returning to BJP

Those pushed aside during the Modi-Shah regime are beginning to find their feet and voice. And these are early days yet. The BJP must welcome these developments.

Caught between his mass appeal & internal apprehensions, how RSS is conflicted about Yogi Adityanath

UP CM is seen as ‘outsider not bred in RSS ways’, but is also widely admired as Hindutva administrator. Lacking an outfit behind him, he’s said to be in succession battle with Amit Shah.

1984 Chennai airport bombing shows what happens when spies hijack foreign policy

Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, seduced by the power covert means could give, allowed Indian foreign policy to become untethered from consideration of its real-world consequences.

UP village kids forced ISRO to bring space lab. Now they use drones, building weather station

A Bollywood movie, students with big dreams, a supportive pradhan, and ISRO's leap of faith gave UP's Hasudi Ausanpur village India's first primary school with its own space lab. Now, village elders are learning through science.

There’s a boom in senior citizens climbing the Himalayas. Risk evaluation is the first step

Senior citizens are constantly under pressure to gracefully recede from the public eye and retire. But mountaineers and trekkers in their 60s and 70s are questioning this view.

Noida has a thriving black market in farmhouses. Delhi’s partying rich are driving it

Middlemen have marketed the river side as the countryside, pitched them as weekend getaways to the rich from Delhi, and sold them at throwaway prices.

TV anchors are divided on Priyanka Gandhi’s electoral debut. Parivarvaad digs to compliments

Rahul Gandhi finally gave an interview to a TV news channel after giving up his Wayanad seat. There were no awkward questions about dynastic politics.

Kashmiris took Buddhism to the West—when Mongol rulers imported them to Iran

In the 13th century, Iran’s Mongol conquerors presided over Buddhism’s last great flowering in the West.

People who use food to show off imagined moral superiority aren’t just wrong but also idiots

The notion of food purity is essentially an offshoot of the even more offensive idea of caste purity. And it really has no place in today’s India.

Incompetent leaders sent Kargil soldiers to their deaths. Where is the accountability?

As India prepares to commemorate its Kargil victory, it’s long past time to assign responsibility for the many failures of leadership responsible for hundreds of soldier deaths in 1999.

On Camera

Can Syria’s tiny Druze minority survive West Asia’s new storms? There’s little hope

Indians see West Asia as one uninterrupted wash of Islam, but the reality is more complex. For the Druze, support from Israel—where they are a recognised minority—is now critical.

India-US set to ink mini trade deal soon, reach understanding on agricultural & dairy products

Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.

Not just AK-203, India & Russia to jointly manufacture AK-19 and PPK-20 for domestic use and export 

India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.

Strategic partner one day, tactical nightmare the next: India’s learning Trumplomacy the hard way

Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.