The scandal at Ayodhya is not a new low really. It is all too expected as the slippery slope of a journey focused only on the ends without caring for the means. The collapse at Ayodhya is thus a logical culmination of a system of leadership, governance and capture of power that believes in and lives by the edict that results matter and how we get to the results does not.
The core data architecture — a national road safety data lake, AI-powered enforcement, multilingual public awareness — is replicable at any scale, in any South Asian language, in any South Asian urban or rural road environment. The technology does not need to be reinvented for Dhaka, Kathmandu or Karachi. It needs to be validated in Colombo and Delhi first.
The deeper problem is India’s graduate unemployment crisis. Millions of young graduates are not working, earning or acquiring experience, but preparing for competitive exams. The government job has become a lottery ticket; the coaching class has become a waiting room
India is neither Nazi Germany nor Myanmar, and historical comparisons should never be employed simplistically. However, comparative political sociology reveals a recurring lesson: when citizenship becomes tied to ideological notions of national authenticity, minorities disproportionately bear the burden of proving belonging.
In a world moving toward multipolarity, information itself has become contested terrain. Events are no longer just events; they are immediately absorbed into competing narratives. The same incident is read differently depending on where one stands and what one is inclined to believe.
For parents of Indian and South Asian students, who are risk-averse, going to the US for an overseas education was fraught with too many imponderables. It was better to travel to a more reliable destination, such as, Australia. Germany and Ireland also featured as potential destinations but in terms of scale, Australia was the preferred beneficiary.
The Ghost Murmur AI rescue of a U.S. pilot in Iran is an epochal event in the history of warfare. It shows how new technologies can be used to go around old restrictions and can allow carrying out operations that were not possible a decade ago.
India is managing intense US pressure about its involvement in the Chabahar port, with Washington providing only a six-month sanctions waiver set to expire in April 2026. While India has officially stated that exiting the project is "not an option" due to strategic interests in connecting with Afghanistan and Central Asia, it is actively negotiating for a long-term waiver to the sanctions.
The battlefield is no longer defined by geography alone. It extends into space, into networks, into supply chains, and into the human mind. Conflict today is as much about disruption as it is about destruction; as much about perception as it is about position. Lines are blurred, between soldier and system, between civilian and combatant, between war and peace.
The relationship between Resolution 80/23 and India’s 2026 CD statement illustrates a recurring challenge in contemporary arms control: how to build durable global norms in a world of divergent security contexts. Both documents share a foundational conviction — that human judgment must remain at the core of nuclear decision-making, and that AI introduces risks that demand urgent, coordinated attention.
Across all these traditions, a small minority of extremists sometimes distort religious teachings to justify violence. This is not unique to any one faith. In recent decades, for example, some fringe groups have invoked highly selective interpretations of jihad to justify suicide attacks, claiming spiritual reward. Mainstream Islamic scholars overwhelmingly reject these interpretations. Similar distortions have appeared in other traditions as well
Myanmar links India with ASEAN and BIMSTEC. The Asian Highway is to run to Thailand through Myanmar and much can be done to enhance linkages and cooperation with these organisations through stronger links with Myanmar. Proximity and first mover advantage should not be lost.
There are also questions being raised, quietly in some quarters - more openly in others - about whether broader strategic objectives are at play, including the possibility of regional influence being exercised through existing alignments. Whether such perceptions are accurate or not, they exist and they shape how actions are interpreted.
What emerges from this moment is not a singular crisis but a layered one, shaped by global disruptions, local cost pressures, and structural vulnerabilities. Workers are leaving Delhi not because the city has stopped offering work, but because it has become increasingly difficult to live sustainably in the capital city while working.
Conflicts today often lack clearly stated aims, making end states difficult to define. The ongoing engagements involving Russia, Israel, and the United States illustrate this ambiguity. In such situations, conflicts risk being driven more by national ego than by achievable objectives, prolonging destruction and human suffering.
Nevertheless, ethanol is a homegrown, renewable fuel which can being great advantage to the country, increase the remuneration to the farmers and help in expanding industrial crop production base in India.
India, for one, can offer to create - if required - segregated facilities for education, IT services and upskilling training centres in those communities as there are both kinds of establishments in the country and the economic capacity to be generous to neighbours in need without expectation of a quid pro quo.
If “security” is to have real meaning, it must be grounded in the lived experiences of those it is intended to protect. This requires a shift from state‑centred metrics to civilian‑centred measures of stability; where continuity of daily life, equitable protection, and psychological well‑being are integral to how we define security.
Assuming leadership requires both inherent strength and ideological positioning. While the world covets India as a market, India should also become a market leader in strategic areas where it needs to be self-reliant and has export potential. These include space, defence, aeronautics, AI, semiconductors, and skilled manpower. India must leverage economic diplomacy and soft power
