The smartphone that freed a generation is now being used against it. The platforms that carried the protest are now carrying the smears. The digital spaces where young Nepalis found their political voice are today flooded with manipulated images, fake audio, and AI-generated lies targeting the very candidates their movement made possible. The weapon and the wound are the same object.
Politicians, who were silent, complicit, or even instigative during last September’s tragedy, are trying to rebrand themselves on social media to be palatable to “Gen Z” - Nepal’s youth population that was instrumental in overthrowing the last government, leading to comparisons with Bangladesh’s ‘Monsoon Revolution’ of 2024 and Sri Lanka’s Aragayala of 2022.
What links these cases — Pakistan, Britain, India, the Netherlands — is not geography or faith, but backlash. ‘Honour’ is used as a pretext to kill not because women are obedient, but because they are not. It is activated when women seek education, choose partners, leave abusive homes, testify in public, or simply insist on being treated as full human beings.
How do our regulators allow a university to function with almost every leadership position, academic and administrative, occupied by a member of the promoter family? How does patent filing become a game, as alleged in this case, or how does a paper authored under the university on banging vessels to kill the coronavirus get written? The incident brought to sharp light how India has slipped into an education system run on high fees by private institutions with questionable credentials.
Reservation in education has achieved moral legitimacy and expanded access, but it has also created new inequalities and stagnation. Its future lies not in expansion or abolition, but in redefinition. Affirmative action must evolve from symbolic arithmetic to structural reform, grounded in data and fairness.
In Ladakh, it is not just 150 sq km of pasture land allotted to corporates for solar power projects, but also the mining on land of corporate choosing. Why bother about the ecology, environment and disasters?
If executed smoothly, this transaction will serve as a template for future cross-border collaborations, especially within the framework of CEPA and the broader India–UAE economic corridor. It demonstrates that when capital, strategy, advisory prowess and bilateral ambition converge, remarkable outcomes follow.
With nine terrorist camps destroyed by India in Op Sindoor, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) camps in Pakistan are being relocated deeper inside – in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. This could bring them in conflict with the TTP, unless they decide to join hands. Notably, Pakistan has formed an alliance between the LeT and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP or ISIS-K)
A possible model based on Spirituality + Technology = Sustainability and Happiness may help in reducing greed, provide equitable distribution of resources and provide a new paradigm of development not only for India but for mankind. Once the mighty engine of innovation starts in India then the Darwinian evolution of the disruptive model of Phillipe Aghion and Peter Howitt will follow.
According to the World Health Organization, neglecting mental health could cost India over $1 trillion in lost economic output over a decade. That figure isn’t just about hospitals or medication; it represents absenteeism, reduced innovation, and the quiet burnout that drains motivation from classrooms, startups, and boardrooms alike.
The island-nation’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean has placed it at the centre of intensifying geopolitical competition and rivalry between China and India. Sri Lanka’s experience in balancing its own priorities and needs with the competing interests and concerns of India and China through the lens of project financing has largely succeeded despite occasional hiccups
Theatreisation of military, while conceptually appealing, is not a one-size-fits-all solution. India’s strategic geography — with two contiguous adversaries, interlinked land-sea challenges, hybrid threats, and extraordinarily diverse terrain — does not lend itself to neat theatre divisions.
AI is proving to be more than just a digital tool; it is becoming a fiscal multiplier. By tightening compliance, improving revenue forecasts, preventing leakages, and guiding expenditure, AI is reshaping India’s fiscal landscape. Recent tax reforms under the GST regime adjusting slabs to reduce rates on essentials while taxing luxury goods higher were made possible through AI-driven fiscal analytics.
India’s underwater defence remains a top priority. The Navy currently operates 19 submarines—16 conventional and three nuclear-powered (including two ballistic missile submarines and one leased nuclear attack submarine). China, by contrast, possesses 60–70 submarines, including 12 nuclear-powered platforms, and aims to grow to 80 submarines within the decade
When companies see they can get away with violation of labour laws or erode the dignity of workers or do worse with regard to their workforce, more violations of the kind will follow. The only antidote is to put down illegality with an iron hand, to impose exemplary costs on businesses that have little regard for people and to send the message that violations will be met with firm and swift action.
This controversial project of the mid-1980s, inspired by Israeli models, ultimately failed to achieve its intended outcomes. Nevertheless, Israeli involvement left a lasting imprint on the Mahaweli Development Project and agricultural settlements in Sri Lanka. The continuing association between the military and the Mahaweli Development Project may, in part, be attributed to practices introduced by Israeli advisers during the 1980s.
India’s economic self-reliance is not about shutting the doors to the world. It is about standing firm during crises, reducing vulnerabilities, and becoming globally competitive. The philosophy of Atmanirbhar Bharat represents a pragmatic approach: be self-reliant in areas where dependence is dangerous, and globally integrated in sectors where India can lead.
The Indian software and IT services giants have for long been accused of running body shops, a business fashioned out of what essentially is labour arbitrage turned into a fine art. The sector has consistently denied this, arguing that they have moved up the value chain and that they compete on quality, not price.
When I think back to Wagah, what stays with me is not the barbed wire, but the wind -- the same wind moving across the border without asking permission. I think of rivers that carry stories of children whose laughter sounds the same in Lahore, Delhi, Dhaka, and Kathmandu.
