These myth-based narratives reveal a deeper psychological impulse: the desire to anchor Sinhalese Buddhist identity within a framework of global uniqueness and divine purpose. While Sri Lanka’s diplomatic relations with Israel have fluctuated since independence, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist sentiment continues to exhibit a strong emotional affinity toward Israel.
India’s youth are growing up in an ecosystem defined by continuous stimulation and accelerated consumption of information. Attention is fragmented, patience for complexity is declining, and long-form engagement—essential for policy, administration, and strategic thinking—is increasingly marginal. This is not a cultural lament. It is a structural shift with direct consequences for how future administrators, policymakers, and institutional leaders are formed.
By engaging Jordan, Ethiopia and Oman, India demonstrated its capacity to operate across geopolitical divides while remaining anchored in Global South solidarity. These visits were not isolated diplomatic events but part of a sustained effort to reshape international engagement through inclusivity, responsibility, and shared growth. As global uncertainties persist, India’s outreach to West Asia and Africa strengthens its claim to leadership rooted in partnership and a collective vision for a more equitable world order.
The security situation deteriorated further in 2025. A terrorist attack on a Gilgit-Baltistan Scouts checkpost resulted in two fatalities and one injury, heightening tensions. Protests later resumed in Sost, disrupting trade between Pakistan and China via the Khunjerab Pass. The year culminated in two high-profile attacks on October 5, when unidentified gunmen ambushed Maulana Qazi Nisar Ahmed, Ameer of the Ahl-e-Sunnat wal Jamaat in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kohistan, near the police headquarters in Gilgit, injuring him and several others. On the same day, Malik Inayat-ur-Rehman, the Chief Court Judge of Gilgit-Baltistan, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt near the City Hospital.
It is important to note that India has sufficient food stocks to be able to help the affected people in flood-ridden Pakistan. There is an urgent need to ease border restrictions at least to the levels of 2009 to provide easy access to food and relief materials
While the Assam government must sustain its present moves against radicalisation, New Delhi must be firm in ensuring that insidious attempts/activities by anti-Indian elements/groups are neutralised effectively in the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir and some other states
So, the assessment for the fifth largest economy is that this is a slowing phase, as growth drivers need to pick up along with investor sentiment
Efforts should be made to translate the literary heritage of each state and union territory into each of the national languages of India. This will create a whole new education, employment and business ecosystem in the publishing and media industries, sensitising each Indian to the national and civilisational heritage they inherited and building a sense of unity and common purpose.
The progress of the Montreal Protocol till now is, however, not without hiccups and bumps
Both these carriers, which are floating cities with massive flying and firepower, still do not adequately fulfill India’s maritime force requirement. With two vast seaboards and the Indian Ocean region and two rogue adversarial nations, the considered assessment by old-salt veterans is that even three aircraft carriers, meaning two on the sea and one in refit, are not enough
The other pillars of democracy, the judiciary and media, must remain steadfastly independent and impartial guardians of the Constitution. The people still repose their greatest faith in them to protect their rights and uphold their aspirations
Thus, more than one third of the world’s hungry and undernourished people are in India, which is alarming and embarrassing, if not shameful. India’s rank in the global hunger index also (GHI) has dropped to 101 out of 116 countries
Days are ahead when the rupee will tend to become fully convertible. Full convertibility means fully capital account convertibility in the balance of payment. It opens the market for foreign investors, businessmen and trade partners
Bangladesh is going through a tough economic situation; the government’s two largest sources of foreign currency revenues are the export of readymade garment products and remittances from overseas. Remittances are already suffering
This is part of a long tradition of celebrating the two countries’ independence days together, started by activists like the late Dr Mubashir Hasan, Nirmala Deshpande, Asma Jahangir, Kuldip Nayar, and others. Peace groups on either side have been doing this for a couple of decades now, even as administrations in both countries try to prevent them
The basis of all Indian philosophy is the recognition of divinity in the human species and giving respect to all faiths and shades of opinion
Over the years, women officers in the Indian armed forces have begun notching various types of achievements
It must be understood that welfare spending is essential to partly redress the widening inequality in Indian society
Release prisoners on completion of jail term, decriminalise inadvertent border crossings, especially for fisherfolk and minors
