Opinion News - Page 9

Abraham Accords: Trump's new troublemaker in Iran peace talks

With the trust and credibility of both the US and Israel under question in the region, it is difficult to see how the Gulf nations would agree to sign the Abraham Accords and how the Accords could be a precondition to peace with Iran

The G2 that isn't and India's strategic opportunity

America wants a duopoly that China no longer cares about — but where does India stand amid all this?

India’s technical rise must be built on frugal innovation

India has the talent. It has historical evidence of what constrained ingenuity can produce. Now, it needs the institutional will to treat frugal innovation not as a stopgap in the absence of capital, but as a first-principles design philosophy worthy of a civilisation that seeks to influence the trajectory of the 21st century

Rubio’s visit: America’s Delhi diplomacy still carries a missionary complex

Washington must realise that its relationship with Delhi is not a zero-sum game. If it truly wants its ties to flourish, it must moderate, if not abandon, its missionary instinct — both literally and geopolitically

Trump’s next target? Cuba gamble risks turning Caribbean into a boiling pot again

Any desperate attempt at regime change in Cuba is likely to result in instability: a more desperate Cuba, a more confrontational United States, and a Caribbean once again haunted by the dangers of great-power brinkmanship

Wars are won by supply chains, and India is rightly building its defence edge 

Countries do not, and often cannot, make everything they need; defence industrial complexes instead emerge and specialise across geographies based on unique local advantages

The Quad is dead; long live the Quad

The framework might still be alive, but it lacks strategic direction, clear commitment and leadership

The age of strategic ambiguity: Why modern wars no longer end decisively

The current Gulf standoff reflects the essence of grey zone conditions — intense confrontation marked by calibrated escalation, proxy activity and strategic signalling, yet without a clear pursuit of decisive war. Ambiguity itself has become an instrument of strategy

Despite doubt, Quad finds renewed purpose in Delhi

The New Delhi meeting showed that even amid scepticism, the Quad can still produce substantive outcomes when its members focus on converging interests rather than ideological grandstanding

Head-on | Why India refuses to choose between BRICS and Quad

India has plenty of economic problems to worry about: high crude oil prices, a falling rupee, a spike in inflation and the flight of foreign portfolio investors. But India’s structural economic strengths remain intact. Both BRICS and the Quad serve India in its unfolding geopolitical rise

PM Modi should not accept Rubio’s invitation to the White House

For Prime Minister Modi to come to Washington and visit President Trump in the Oval Office would risk a repeat of the Zelenskyy trap

Rubio needs an update on Kolkata: It is Ma Kali’s city again, not Mother Teresa’s

All top diplomatic visitors to Kolkata should now consider going to pay their respects first to Ma Kali at the Kalighat temple; she is the city’s patron deity, after all, and reigns supreme

Taj Mahal is overdone: India must think beyond Delhi and Agra to conduct global diplomacy

Picture this: a single diplomatic meeting in Arunachal Pradesh will not only inform the world about the real side of India’s Northeast, but also counter China’s dubious narrative on the state

Every country has ‘stupid people’: Rubio’s guide to diplomatic evasion and racial deflection

Marco Rubio’s attempt to dismiss online racism in the United States as the ramblings of ‘stupid people’ was a Freudian slip, especially since the very comments in question were enthusiastically amplified by President Donald Trump himself

Quetta attack exposes Balochistan fault lines Pakistan can no longer deny

The attack in the heart of Quetta and near the cantonment on a shuttle carrying military personnel and their families to board the Jaffar Express has exposed Pakistan's inability to control BLA strikes all across Balochistan

Why the West’s report card on India deserves far more scrutiny

The problem with many global indices is not that they criticise India, but that they often claim scientific objectivity while relying on deeply contestable assumptions

When ‘eminent historians’ were put in the dock: Romila Thapar and the collapse of Marxist monopoly

Between Romila Thapar’s warnings on the rise of ‘non-historians’ in her memoir and a recent viral clip disputing her interpretation of Patanjali lies the story of fading Marxist monopoly in Indian historiography. The real challenge before Indian historiography today is not the existence of competing narratives, but the treatment of one ideological school as the sole custodian of intellectual legitimacy while dismissing all dissent as ignorance

Pakistan’s long shadow of jihadism makes peace with India impossible

No country can build lasting peace with a gun permanently pointed at its head

Marco Rubio is a smooth talker, a clever man and a seasoned diplomat, but he shouldn’t insult our intelligence

Let us not pretend that the past year did not happen, or Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones wiped our collective memory clean with the ‘Neuralyzer’

Trump, Xi and Putin: The new great power game has begun

The current geopolitical distance between the US and its allies will be short-lived if Russia and China, in their respective regions, persist with their current or future assertive policies

When Rubio met ‘General Summer’: India’s heatwave diplomacy leaves America sweating

Marco Rubio’s arrival in New Delhi during the sweltering May heat has quietly sent Washington a strategic message: a country that survives the blistering summer sun can also withstand Trump-era pressure politics

Ebola hits Africa summit, but opens space for India’s health diplomacy

The Ebola crisis is both a setback and a test. It delays an important diplomatic milestone, but it also offers India an opportunity to show that its partnership with Africa is rooted not merely in summit declarations, but in responsiveness during moments of vulnerability and crisis.

China’s discomfort is Quad’s best validation

Beijing hates the Quad, and that is reason enough to keep it going

Rubio’s India visit puts Quad back in focus as China looms large

New Delhi’s challenge is to engage with the Quad while having no illusion that it will solve India’s China problem

Securing NEET through a resilient NTA

High-end encryption on secure servers, directly deliverable to candidates at examination centres, would make the system impregnable.

Abrupt layoffs and the erosion of dignity at work

The rise of automated layoffs is reshaping not only employment, but also the relationship between institutions and employees

Putin’s China visit signals a new Eurasian order

Vladimir Putin’s Beijing visit shows that pressure on Russia has hurt Moscow, but it has not left Russia isolated. Instead, it has pushed the bear closer to the dragon

The defence calculus behind PM Modi’s Europe visit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s four-nation visit signalled India’s transition from a defence importer to a strategic industrial and technology partner for Europe

Juggler in the middle: Beijing’s diplomatic theatre and the geography of overreach

China’s diplomacy now resembles a permanent tightrope walk between American markets, Russian energy, and Global South ambitions

The Nalanda Approach: India’s civilisational pathway to the Global South

The Nalanda Approach must become part of India’s larger diplomatic and cultural imagination