Union Budget 2026: A top-4 GDP with a still-developing fiscal imagination
India has climbed to become the world’s fourth largest economy — a headline repeated with justifiable pride. It is presented as proof of arrival: that the...
Opinion
The Last Funeral of Dynasty Politics: How the Thackeray Name Lost Maharashtra—and Why India Isn’t Looking Back
The Thackeray surname once bent Maharashtra’s politics the way monsoon winds bend sugarcane—without negotiation, without resistance, through sheer force of inevitability. To be a Thackeray was...
From Megaphone to Mausoleum: How Protest Politics Fails at Scale—In India, Latin America, and Africa
Every generation falls in love with protest. Every nation eventually learns it cannot be governed by one. India’s political history is crowded with leaders who rose...
“One Budget, Many Indias: What Different Demographies Really Want in 2026”
India’s next Union Budget (2026–27) is arriving at a moment when different Indian demographies want mutually contradictory things—often from the same rupee. One group wants tax...
The Wind-Up Presidency: Insert Praise, Watch Democracy Clap
There is a comforting myth about strongmen: that they are driven by ideology, vision, or at least a coherent plan. Donald Trump ruined that myth. His...
Trump, Venezuela and the Limits of Pressure
The relationship between Venezuela and Donald Trump has always been less about Venezuela itself and more about how power, pressure, and spectacle are used in American...
Why the Taliban Government Is Here to Stay.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan is often described as temporary, brittle, or destined to collapse under the weight of isolation and economic failure. Yet nearly four...
The Republic Between Ballots and Barricades – How Bangladesh’s transition risks trading authoritarian stability for democratic disorder
Bangladesh is living through a moment that looks, from afar, like a political transition—but feels, from within, like a reckoning postponed too long and unleashed too...
Thailand, Cambodia and the Limits of Western Influence.
The recent tensions between Thailand and Cambodia are often presented as a small border dispute between two neighbours with a long, shared history. In reality, the...
The Taiwan Question and the Fragile Logic of Deterrence.
Few geopolitical disputes carry as much consequence — or as much quiet tension — as the question of Taiwan. It rarely dominates headlines for long, yet...