Opinion

Opinion | 'Say Our Name': Why A Tiny Island Nation Wants The World To Get Its Name Right

Standing before the UN hall of nations, Naoero President David Adeang asked the world to unlearn its comfortable habits and speak a restored truth.

Opinion | 'Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics': On The Controversy Around India's GDP Growth Figures

The debate is less about a single figure than about a decade-long erosion of trust in official statistics.

Opinion | The Trump-Xi Summit, And India's Many Worries Of Its Own

Washington and Beijing may have chosen coexistence over confrontation. For India, that could be both a relief and a warning.

Opinion | Building BRICS In New Delhi

For India as the host nation, chairing the summit tests the core tenet of its modern foreign policy: strategic autonomy.

Opinion | 9/11, And The Price Of Fighting Terror For A Quarter Century

Twenty-five years later, 9/11 is more than just a lived memory for those who witnessed it in real time, as I did as a UN official

Blog | Why You Should Care Whether Schrodinger's Cat Is Dead Or Alive

Imagine going on a romantic Alpine getaway and returning with the equation that runs the modern world. The only snag: nobody can quite agree on what it says about reality.

Opinion | Why India's Bureaucrats Have Learnt That Doing 'Nothing' Is Safer

India's bureaucracy has perfected a peculiar survival strategy: make a decision, you may be punished; make none, and you are usually safe.

Opinion | Mumbai's 'Marathi' Test For Cabbies, And The Art Of Fixing The Wrong Problems

All these years, India's financial capital has worked just fine without a Marathi mandate for its taxiwallahs. Whose problem is the new language rule actually solving now?

Opinion | 79 Years On, India's Enduring Answer To Those Who Had Predicted Its Collapse

Seventy-nine years in the lifespan of an ancient civilisation is a mere heartbeat; yet, in the annals of modern nation-building, it's an audacious triumph.

The Coast Pays, Delhi Collects: What The Centre's Mineral Bill Takes From States

India's mineral wealth may lie with the states, but the power to tax it is increasingly travelling north.

Opinion | 84 Years After Quit India Movement, The Nation We Must Still Build

The collective spirit of 1942 cannot remain locked in the past

'A Breaking Point': An Open Letter To Nandan Nilekani On How To Fix India's Exams

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor offers a radical blueprint to the man leading the Centre's exam reforms task force.

Opinion | For The Great Passport Debate, A 'Common-Sense' Cure - By Shashi Tharoor

There is a gap between legal theory and the practical realities of a passport. But an easy fix can resolve this manufactured crisis.

Opinion | Iran War: Has New Delhi Lost Out, And Has Pak Really Gained? By Shashi Tharoor

To imagine a Nobel Peace for the terrorist-sponsoring Field Marshal Asim Munir may be a fantasy too far. The world sees clearly the difference between an autonomous actor and a message-carrying stool-pigeon.

Opinion | The Story Of A Hotel Check-In, And An India That No Longer Exists

Recently, a Muslim BJP leader was denied a room in a hotel in Aurangabad. Therein lie both the tragedy and the irony of our times.

Opinion | The Beijing Spectacle: Two Weary Giants Carve Up Their Share Of The World

For the world's middle powers, including India, the solidification of Washington and Beijing's duopoly presents an acute, existential dilemma.

Opinion | 'Who Else?' - The Hubris That Shattered The Left In Kerala

The LDF's slogan, "Matt aarunde?" ("Who else is there?"), complete with towering portraits of Pinarayi Vijayan, was intended to project stability and a lack of alternatives. Instead, it projected an arrogance that voters found stifling.

Opinion | The 'Donnyland' Donnybrook: How To Conduct Foreign Policy In The Age Of Ego-Geopolitics

What's next after Ukraine's 'Donnyland'? Arc De Trumphe? Mount Trump-more? Trump Mahal?

Opinion | A Year After Pahalgam, India Contends With Desperate Enemies, Distracted Friends

The most challenging question on this anniversary is what might happen if another Pahalgam-scale attack were to occur today. New Delhi finds itself in a strategic pincer.

Opinion: The Great North-South Debate, And Prickly Questions About 'Fairness'

A strict population-based delimitation could produce a Lok Sabha in which a handful of large northern Hindi-belt states hold a permanent majority, enabling them to shape national policies even against the preferences of the rest of the country.