Another defining feature of Bangladesh's current media environment is the emergence of "mob culture." The attack on The Daily Star and Prothom Alo offices is a serious example of mob attack. Media owners often hesitate to invite commentators associated with the previous government or opposing political viewpoints because they fear public backlash, protests, or attacks
For decades, Bofors was treated as a national scandal of almost Biblical proportions, with international ramifications. All guns ablaze. Yet when its judicial afterlife finally reaches a dead end, the story seems to have lost its political ammunition. Not even a recall that the much-maligned gun, which was accused of backfiring at those who fired, not at the target, had vindicated its purchase during the 1999 Kargil conflict.
India therefore needs a serious conversation on algorithmic accountability. If AI increasingly informs policing, citizens deserve clarity on its legal basis, safeguards against misuse, limits on data retention, independent oversight and effective judicial remedies.
The recurring examination scandals were failures of governance. Likewise, concerns regarding foreign influence should not preclude critical examination of how regulatory institutions themselves function.
The Ahmedabad verdict should not be viewed merely as the culmination of one terrorism trial. It represents the maturation of India's institutional capacity to confront terrorism through both security and law. Over the past two decades, India has steadily strengthened its counter-terrorism architecture
The revival of shipbuilding has become a central pillar of national policy, extending across defence, commerce and industrial development. Indian shipyards today construct aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers, offshore patrol vessels and a wide range of commercial vessels.
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.
The BJP is winning elections at the level of the state through sophisticated identity coalitions and institutional leverage. Gen Z is winning the internet through a combination of genuine grievance, cultural fluency, and the particular humor of people who have been told they are useless and decided to make art out of it.
Democracies need dissent. Young Indians have every right to demand credible examinations, transparent recruitment, accountable institutions and a responsive government. To delegitimise all youth anger as foreign manipulation would be intellectually lazy and politically dangerous. But it is equally naive to pretend that geopolitics ends at the border of domestic protest.
Workplace accidents impose costs far beyond the immediate loss of life and injury. Families lose breadwinners, enterprises suffer productivity losses, projects face delays and governments incur healthcare and compensation costs. The social consequences can be particularly severe for migrant and informal workers
For decades, these states invested heavily in women’s education, public health, industrialisation, literacy and population control. Fertility rates in many southern states have already fallen below replacement levels. In contrast, several northern states lagged behind for years on precisely these indicators. If parliamentary representation now shifts overwhelmingly toward states with higher population growth, the message becomes deeply perverse: governance discipline weakens political power.
At its heart, the challenge to Section 62(5) is a test of constitutional sincerity, of whether the Indian Republic truly believes that citizenship endures even behind bars. Enacted in the infancy of the republic, the provision has long outlived its moral logic. It collapses the distinction between confinement and culpability
To its credit, the new state government’s policy declaration recognised this reality. It emphasised skill development, industry-linked learning and stronger connections between educational institutions and emerging sectors of the economy. Whether those aspirations translate into measurable reform remains to be seen.
Apart from risks related to the integrity of the process, the SIR process also turns what is celebrated as the festival of Indian democracy into a nightmare for the excluded. It can create divisions and split neighbourhoods, particularly when the numbers are large and hotly contested, as they have been in the most recent example in the state of West Bengal.
The rise of the Cockroach Janata Party may ultimately fade as quickly as it appeared. Most internet movements do. But the frustrations driving it are real and unlikely to disappear soon. Millions of young Indians feel politically unheard and economically cornered. Increasingly, they are expressing that frustration not through traditional political participation, but through irony, parody and nihilistic humour.
At another level, it reveals a growing impatience with conventional politics. When citizens feel unheard, they often resort to satire as a form of protest. The joke becomes a shield, allowing them to express dissent without fully committing to a cause. But there is also a risk
