Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just for You

In his weekly column for The Indian Express, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram analyses Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan’s admission of India’s tactical mistakes and losses on 7 May."The truth had to be told some day. I feel it would have been more appropriate to convene a special session of Parliament and for the prime minister or defence minister to make a statement on Operation Sindoor, and invite a discussion," he writes.The issue of ‘tactical mistakes’ and ‘losses’ require deeper and sober analysis by military experts, not uninformed noisy debates on television screens. From the information (some verified, some not) available in the public domain the following are clear: Indian aircraft and missiles had the first-mover advantage in the early hours of 7 May and destroyed (or severely damaged) nine infrastructure bases of terrorist groups in Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated on 8 May and sent drones to counter-attack targets in India. Pakistan also deployed guided missiles. Indian aircraft were lost on 8 May. From CDS’s remarks subsequently (at Pune on 4 June), it seems that Indian aircraft were lost over Indian airspace and the other aircraft were grounded on 8 and 9 May. After re-strategising, Indian aircraft, missiles and drones were deployed on 9-10 May (CDS said 10 May). Indian aircraft seemed to have stayed within Indian airspace and fired missiles, including BrahMos missiles, and hit Pakistan’s 11 military air bases. The war stopped on 10 May.P Chidambaram, The Indian ExpressIn the Hindustan Times, journalist and author Karan Thapar argues that the Congress has made itself 'look foolish' by choosing to disparage Shashi Tharoor rather than celebrate his recent success abroad."The Congress could have gained immeasurably in stature, while also teasingly embarrassing the government, if it had thought coolly and carefully, strategically and craftily," he writes.I would have thought the Congress would look upon Shashi Tharoor as a prized asset, one of its most valuable members and a source of enormous pride. But, instead, it seems to consider him a renegade, perhaps a rebel or, at least, a rascal. The leadership is not merely cold and unwelcoming to him, it seems they just don’t like him...An astute political party only goes public with a loud admonition if it believes that it will be met with a warm and welcome response. Quite the opposite was the case this time round. The Congress shot itself in the foot whilst Shashi won loads of sympathy, in addition to the admiration he already has in abundance. Clearly, this was 40-love Shashi.Karan Thapar, Hindustan TimesIn The Indian Express, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis responds to Rahul Gandhi’s column in the paper last week, which questioned the outcome of the November 2024 Maharashtra Assembly elections."Frankly, this topic is old and has been dragged out for long. The Election Commission has already provided exhaustive responses time and again," he writes.His “article” deserves to be ignored, but it operates on a principle: If you can’t convince people, confuse them. That is precisely what Rahul Gandhi is repeatedly doing. Therefore, we must continue to present the facts to the public. Of course, it is a separate matter that he is already preparing his excuses for future defeats in the upcoming assembly elections, including Bihar. As far as the Maharashtra elections are concerned, it was not fundamentally a contest between the Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi. There was another factor: The Bharat Jodo Abhiyaan. What was this “todo” (break) campaign, established under the name of “jodo” (unite), doing? It was creating misconceptions among the public against all of the country’s constitutional institutions, thereby inciting them to fight against the nation itself. This includes the judiciary and the Election Commission, etc. Devendra Fadnavis, The Indian ExpressWriting for the Hindustan Times, Jaisal Singh pays tribute to his uncle, Valmik Thapar — one of India’s foremost wildlife conservationists — and reflects on how Thapar’s lasting influence shaped both the country’s wildlife conservation landscape and his own formative years in the forests of Ranthambore.Often, we woke to find fresh tiger pug marks by our beds. This experience and these three exceptional men shaped me in different ways, and as I look back to an incredibly fortunate childhood, the die for my life was cast around the Jogi Mahal campfire. The discussions varied from the day’s wildlife sightings to the positive changes in tiger behaviour post the ban on shooting — they had now started to roam more confidently and freely even during the day without the fear of being shot by trophy hunters — the problems they still faced, and what was needed to ensure their survival. The trio co-authored their first book, With Tigers in the Wild, in 1982, and Valmik went on to become a prolific author, with over 40 books in 50 years. Jaisal Singh, Hindustan TimesIn his piece for The New Indian Express, author and cartoonist Ravi Shankar Etteth warns that India’s self-image as a global swing state is rapidly eroding under Trump’s transactional worldview and shifting geopolitics.Now MAGA expects allies to act as vassals. Operation Sindoor was expected to be a rallying point for international solidarity; instead it bought India little purchase. The quiet nudges and strategic winks that once accompanied its global assertiveness have vanished. Trump’s economic worldview is as transactional as his diplomacy. His tariffs threaten to undercut the Make in India initiative over Make in America worldview. In May, he told Tim Cook that he doesn’t want Apple building its products in India. American firms with global supply chains are being forced to reevaluate manufacturing partnerships. And the final insult: reports of the Trump family’s covert crypto deal with Pakistan’s military-linked fintech firms, potentially opening financial backdoors to the very groups India deems terror proxies. Amidst this chaos, Prime Minister Modi’s foreign policy team is beginning to look adrift.Ravi Shankar Etteth, The New Indian ExpressIn Deccan Herald, Nigam Nuggehalli discusses a recent Supreme Court judgment in Vijaya Bank v Prashant Narnaware, where an employee challenged a contract clause requiring him to pay a severance amount if he left the job before completing three years.Nuggehalli uses the case to highlight the flexibility of older laws like the Indian Contract Act, and why the judiciary must adapt them to modern contexts through thoughtful interpretation.The first thing to note is that contractual relationships in India are governed by the Indian Contract Act, 1872. Why do we even have such an old enactment governing the bedrock of business relationships? The answer lies in the stability of the law which has withstood the dynamic nature of commerce and technology...The Indian Contract Act has a provision, peculiar both for its brevity and its breadth. It says that all contracts that restrain a person from exercising a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind are void. If read in a literal fashion, any possible restriction on a person’s employment would be rendered otiose. Based on this provision, you might argue that the severance amount mentioned in the contract (lawyers call them liquidated damages) cannot be demanded by the company. But the Supreme Court upheld the contractual clause and stated that the employee was bound to pay the severance amount. How is this possible, when the Act states otherwise? Here we arrive at another feature of the law beloved of both legal scholars and legal practitioners: the law is not always what it means on the face of it.Nigam Nuggehalli, Deccan HeraldIn her weekly column for The Indian Express, Tavleen Singh examines how dynastic politics has bolstered Bilawal Bhutto and Rahul Gandhi’s roles and public statements amid Operation Sindoor."They would not be considered political leaders at all if it were not for their illustrious surnames," she writes.An unforeseen consequence of Operation Sindoor has been that South Asia’s two poster boys of dynastic democracy surfaced and made fools of themselves. I speak of Bilawal Bhutto and Rahul Gandhi...Bilawal has lost his relevance in Pakistani politics and is now merely a spokesman for the military men who control the political chessboard. Rahul remains relevant because he is fully in control of our oldest political party. And the only national party, we have other than the BJP. We have no choice but to take what he says seriously, which is why it is worrying that he continues to sound like a schoolboy with a special grudge against Modi for daring to usurp India, which he considers his birthright to rule since his family once did.Tavleen Singh, The Indian ExpressIn his piece for The Tribune, Raja Bhasin paints a bittersweet picture of present-day Shimla overrun by tourists and how weary locals have developed quirky, often humorous, ways to push back.Another gentleman seemed to be able to sniff out tourists who did not use Google Maps and were in search of directions. Those whose presence, he felt, was sullying the town, were pointed the wrong way. With his able assistance, people who wanted to go to the railway station arrived at the bus stand. “Now they will go back and tell their friends not to come to Shimla and I will have achieved my goal of keeping away tourists like these,” was his take. The ones that he approved, however, found correct directions. He would chat them up. He would let them buy him coffee. Or more. Occasionally, he would get carried away and go to a friend who had a photo studio on the Mall and ask for his picture to be taken with them. As he never paid for the pictures and never came to collect a print, my friend would click away and then delete the file.Raja Bhasin, The TribuneWriting for the Deccan Herald, Rahul Jayaraman says that through their toxic rhetoric and propaganda, mainstream Hindi TV media has not only damaged journalism, but also tainted the collective identity of North Indians and Hindi speakers."It’s a truth universally acknowledged that mainstream Hindi TV media has abysmal standards now. Yet what its chosen anchors dished out last month post-Pahalgam, further impaired not just the reputation of journalism but also the perception of the identity of the speakers of that language," he writes.Language and identities associated through that language take a hammering when the said language is weaponised. Its latest instalment was what we saw last month. As identity shapers, all forms of mainstream media are potent propellers for language-based identity creation and destruction (especially the latter). History provides ample proof. The rise of Nazism a century ago is a wounding reminder of the wreckage wrought on the German tongue and its reverberations continue to haunt the German sense of the self.Rahul Jayaraman, Deccan HeraldWhy Opposition is Right in Asking Tough Questions of Modi & Op SindoorTrump vs Musk: When a Bromance Becomes a CoupIndia’s CDS Breaks Silence on IAF Losses: Why the Admission is SignificantAfter Antitrust Battles, Can Google Clean Up Its Act?‘Justice is My Religion’: The Indian Army Must Remember its Secular Legacy Beyond Counting: What Made The Caste Census Inevitable?

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Sunday View: The Best Weekend Opinion Reads, Curated Just for You

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