Will Bihar Escape Its Self-Made Traps?
In his column for The Indian Express, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram argues that Bihar, despite its considerable potential, remains stuck in longstanding political, social and caste traps of its own making. "The 2025 elections to the Bihar state assembly is not about the 1990s or earlier governments but about Mr Nitish Kumar and his 20 years of governance," he writes.
He also pointed out Bihar's stagnation as a "failed state" despite Nitish Kumar's 20-year rule and abundant resources, citing data on high youth unemployment, poverty, low GDP share.
The politics of Bihar must change. Who will change it? The answers can vary, but it is common sense that Mr Nitish Kumar is not the person who will herald the change. He is entrenched in his 20-year habits. Add to that the genuine concerns about his health and his unpredictable behaviour. It is foolish to imagine that Mr Nitish Kumar will change himself or bring about a radical change in the governance of Bihar. Mr Nitish Kumar will be a slaughtered lamb like the lambs the BJP slaughtered in Punjab, Haryana, Odisha and Maharashtra. Every regional party that was embraced by the BJP has met its downfall or demise. The fate of JD(U) may not be different.P Chidambaram, The Indian Express
Count Them In
In this piece for The Telegraph, SY Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India warns that Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls risks undermining democracy by silently deleting millions of names without due notice or evidence, turning "cleaning" into "cleansing" and potentially swaying close races. "There is a critical difference between cleaning the roll and cleansing the electorate. One strengthens democracy; the other undermines it," he writes.
What did the Bihar SIR reveal about the state of Indian democracy? It revealed, first, that procedure must not be a bureaucratic ritual: it is the very instrument by which democracy must protect the weak. Rule 20 of the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960 requires that every voter whose name is proposed for deletion must receive written notice and an opportunity to be heard. Yet, in Bihar, many voters were marked “shifted” or “duplicate” without any record that notice had been served. Interestingly, the activist, Yogendra Yadav, presented two individuals before the Supreme Court who were still alive but had been shown as dead in the draft rolls — a troubling indication of verification failures. Poor and migrant voters, who are often away for work, appear to have been disproportionately affected. In many cases, they were not contacted even once before deletion. If this is allowed to be repeated nationwide, India risks turning millions of voters into silent casualties of bureaucratic zeal.SY Quraishi, The Telegraph
Hurray to the Underdog
In this piece for The Indian Express, Leher Kala cheers the underdog's defiant rule-breaking as a poetic, if ethically flawed, rebellion against rigged systems, spotlighting toll plaza workers who fled posts in protest over a slashed Diwali bonus (from ₹5,000 to ₹1,100), costing the company lakhs but netting a 10% pay hike.
She argues that when people feel powerless, they sympathise with acts of defiance that challenge the status quo, giving examples such as that of Julian Assange and Luigi Mangione, to name a few.
When the economic and social order feels like it’s teetering on a rocky precipice, our ethics and values are bound to change, too. The outpouring of support for Mangione, who allegedly shot dead an insurance CEO in New York, suggests that people even in far richer societies derive great satisfaction from making the powerful squirm with fear. There are complicated emotions at play; resentment and frustration mostly, but at its core, it’s a desperate longing for fairness, that’s all but vanished. When someone finally points the gun and shoots the so-called perpetrator of injustice, for a brief moment at least, it feels that those who’ve benefited from inequality have lost. Even if ethically, killing is hard to justify, no matter what the provocation. It can only be understood philosophically, that imperfections are embedded in human nature.Leher Kala, The Indian Express
Three Children For Hindu Families? Women Must Say ‘No’ to RSS’ Call
Anita Anand, in her column for the Deccan Chronicle critiques the recent call by the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for Hindu families to have at least three children to prevent a perceived demographic decline, arguing that the appeal is rooted more in identity politics and Hindu survival than sound demographic policy.
The RSS and the BJP, both male-led, mention women’s empowerment in their manifestos but lack a clear understanding of it in theory and practice. They adopt and enforce policies that reflect outdated views of women, families, and society. The values they promote could set us back centuries. They spread intolerance and hatred. Countries that offered incentives to women to have more children have not achieved any significant success. For a long time, men have tried to persuade women to have more children, especially sons, to continue the family lineage or to demonstrate their virility and manhood. Sometimes, they have succeeded. But now, fewer and fewer women choose to do so.Anita Anand, Deccan Chronicle
Adani’s Under Fire. We’ve Seen This Before
In this piece for the Deccan Herald, Rajeev Srinivasan argues that the renewed scrutiny and criticism of the Adani Group are hardly new — they resemble prior episodes of intense public, media and regulatory attention around the conglomerate.
The author suggests that many of the charges currently being raised carry familiar patterns such as concerns about governance, debt, over-expansion and close political ties and must be assessed with caution rather than treated as fresh revelations.
Adani has been successful in their ports and energy businesses; they are doing well in airports; their efforts in green energy and in data centres (the new Google AI data centre in Visakhapatnam) may yet prove to be winners. Thus, Adani has shown it can compete well in difficult infrastructure sectors. Of course, these need to align with government policies. Which brings whispers of “crony capitalism”, which is rich coming from the US, where “robber barons” like John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J P Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt created enormous fortunes primarily through cronyism. Have you heard “What’s good for General Motors is good for America”? Boeing, the Koch Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and Big Tech are current beneficiaries of State munificence.Rajeev Srinivasan, Deccan Herald
Uska Bat, Ball
In her 'Inside Track' column for The Indian Express, Coomi Kapoor likens strained India-Pakistan cricket diplomacy to a childish playground spat—"uska bat, ball"—as Pakistan's Mohsin Naqvi, backed by the army, withholds the ACC trophy in Dubai. The leader insists he will only hand it over personally to a member of the winning team in the presence of one BCCI representative.
Kapoor suggests that India must adjust its expectations, revise its leverage and accept that conventional frameworks often fail to constrain Pakistan’s behaviour.
Many see parallels between Naqvi’s spoilsport conduct and the old cricket adage “uska bat, ball”. This phrase is common among youngsters playing ad hoc cricket in maidans, where one entitled player produces the cricketing gear and expects to call the shots or else he pulls out his stumps and confiscates the bat and ball. In Naqvi’s case, however, the trophy belongs to the ACC and not to him personally.Coomi Kapoor, The Indian Express
A Life Aborted
In this column for The Telegraph, Ramachandra Guha mourns the "aborted" scholarly life of Umar Khalid who has been imprisoned without trial for over five years on dubious charges tied to the 2020 Delhi riots. He praised Khalid's 2018 PhD thesis on Adivasi society in colonial Singhbhum as one of India's finest academic work.
"In the years since, I have sometimes wondered at the different paths our lives have taken, and the reasons for this. Have I been able to carry on my research and writing, whereas he has not, because my first name is Ramachandra and not Umar?" questions Guha.
I have written about Dr Khalid here because, as a historian of modern India myself, I am in a position to appreciate the depth and richness of his scholarly work. But as I close this column, I must note that he is one of many fine, upright men and women, who are languishing in jail under dubious charges hastily filed by the police under orders from their political masters. Some of these Indians are also scholars and researchers. Others are social workers and civil society activists, who have in their life and work shown themselves to be steadfastly committed to non-violence and the founding values of the Indian Constitution. It is this commitment to pluralism and democracy, and perhaps nothing else, that has made them fall foul of the authoritarian and majoritarian tendencies of the ruling regime.Ramachandra Guha, The Telegraph
Trump-Xi Interim Truce Narrows Strategic Space
In this piece for Deccan Chronicle, KC Singh talks about the recent meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, which produced a symbolic trade-and-tariff truce, signaling the emergence of a tighter US-China strategic axis that could squeeze other powers like India out of key diplomatic and economic spaces. In context of US, he advises India to navigate via ego-stroking (Nobel nods), trade incentives with safeguards, among other things.
India is left with at least three options. One, continue with arms-length diplomacy, maintain public poise and await Mr Trump's inevitable domestic political engrossment. Two, offer Mr Trump ostensible wins in trade talks, while protecting India's core interests. This may require extra-diplomatic outreach and allurements still not ostensibly employed by India. Three, do a major rethink of the Indian strategic master plan. India must assume that the US no longer sees India as critical to its containment of China or stability in the Indo-Pacific.KC Singh, Deccan Chronicle
Ode to November and Memories of Autumn
In his column for the Hindustan Times, Karan Thapar reflects on the contrast between his vivid memories of autumn in the West—where leaves turn ochre, rust and auburn and days with golden light—and the muted transition of seasons in Delhi, where summer transitions directly into winter with little in-between. He refers to Keats’s Ode to Autumn insinuating that autumn in Delhi remains “just a poem… not a lived reality.”
Twenty years ago, I arrived in Washington in the middle of fall. As the taxi drove from Dulles Airport to the Hay Adams Hotel, the other side of the square from the White House, I saw for the first time the autumn palette of colours I only knew till then from vivid photographs and eloquent descriptions. I was riveted. It was mesmerising. I spent the entire journey looking out of the window. And I fell in love with America in November.Karan Thapar, Hindustan Times
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