Nishtha Gautam
Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic
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Opinion | Might Is Right, Again: On America's 'Kidnapping' Of A Sitting President
The barrage of visuals showing Maduro, inelegantly dressed, in handcuffs on American soil, are startling but nothing new in the US playbook. Remember Gaddafi and Saddam? Only, the theatre is the neighbourhood and not the faraway 'Middle East'.
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Opinion | Bangladesh: A Lynching, Nationalism, And Blood Sacrifice
For the present idea of Bangladeshi nationalism, a Hindu factory worker claiming that God is one and the same for everyone, despite different names, is an inconvenience. It hasn't been a new inconvenience, though.
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Opinion | Pakistan's Push For An India-Less 'SAARC' Is Pure Delusion
Pakistan may want to shed its "Naach na Jaane, Aangan Tedha" mentality for its own good.
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Opinion | With Sheikh Hasina's Death Sentence, It's 1975 Again In Bangladesh
Hasina becomes an emblem of the circularity of South Asian history, where leaders are alternately elevated as saviours and condemned as tyrants, often within a single lifetime.
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Opinion | Why Do NRIs Hate Mamdani? Because He Threatens Their 'American' Dream
Mamdani's unapologetic leftism, his advocacy for tenants' rights, and his support for Palestine challenge the sanitised image of "model minority". Mamdani is more West Village than Wall Street, and this is what scares a section of NRIs in America.
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Opinion | Does India Control The Taliban?
By trying to cover its own inadequacies in terms of domestic and neighbourhood policies using India's alleged involvement, Pakistan is again playing the victim card. But why does India let these accusations go mostly unchallenged?
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Opinion | This Is Really Why Machado 'Dedicated' Her Nobel To Trump
It is perhaps fitting, in this age of irony and inversion, that the Nobel Peace Prize of 2025 has not gone to Trump, the self-proclaimed dealmaker of destiny.
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Opinion | To Survive Trump, India Needs More Than Just Handshakes With Xi And Putin
The resilience of the Indian economy will outlast Trump's tariff agenda; to survive and flourish beyond that, however, will need more than friendship with Xi and Putin.
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Opinion | Asim Munir, And Why Trump Must Be A Little Careful With Flatterers
Trump's assessment of the US-Pakistan relations in his first presidential term was that of a parasitic arrangement. The volte-face in the current term has many reasons, the most important being Trump's proclivity for unabashed flatterers.
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Opinion | Trump, Tughlaq, Tariffs: The Dangers Of Strength Without Sense
Like Trump, Tughlaq was often described as an erratic ruler with no shortage of ambition but a chronic inability to foresee the consequences. That's their paradox: strength without strategy, vision without realism.
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Opinion | China, Now Trump: Pakistan And The Art Of Somehow Finding Patrons
Pakistan has successfully lobbied Western capitals into believing in its indispensability in the regional strategic landscape. The US continues to buy this narrative for various reasons, not discounting the naivete among them.
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Opinion | How Many Dead Babies Does A War Need?
Given New Delhi's historical support for Palestine, its supposed 'neutrality' today in the face of death, starvation, and genocide, citing a strategic relationship with Israel, is incongruous.
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Opinion | India's Classroom Crisis: Why Your Teacher Is So Clueless About Everything
I've spent the past month in my ancestral village, setting up a dream project. What I've encountered here, once again, is a paradoxical crisis - an education system so hollowed out that hope and despair now coexist in equal measure.
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Opinion | Of Prada, Dior, And Manufactured Meanings Of Luxury
Let's not waste breath or bites any further on Prada and Dior 'stealing' from the Indian artisanal traditions: the Kolhapuri footwear and the Muqaish embroidery.
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Opinion | Who Wants Peace, Anyway? On War And The People Who Fuel It
The war industry cannibalises all others, and there's no shortage of hypocrisy in today's global security discourse. Powerful states lament instability while fuelling it through arms sales and proxy wars.
