Bihar is a politically complex state. Between 1960 and 1990, the state had seen 23 Chief Ministers and 5 spells of President’s rule. Lalu Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi brought some stability. Together they ruled for 12 years between 1990 and 2005 with three spells of President rule in between. For a state […]
Ram Madhav
What India looks for is an America that brings with it many allies
In India, some believe that Biden-Harris would be bad news for US-India relations. It must be understood that US-India ties stand on a mutually beneficial bipartisan and strong footing. But what India looks for is an America that brings with it many allies. In American constitutional history, there were at least two occasions in the […]
Sardar Patel and the Kashmir question
PM Modi was not off the mark when he said last year, ‘…. that if Sardar Patel was the first PM of India there would not have been a Jammu and Kashmir problem.’ Napoleon once called history “a fable mutually agreed upon”. What we call history is sometimes a popular myth that is politically and […]
One Year after formation of UT of J&K and UT of Ladakh: An Interview with Shri Ram Madhav
JAMMU AND KASHMIR Aditya Raj Kaul (ARK): It’s been a year since the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A from Jammu & Kashmir. Has the landmark decision really brought in any change for the common masses on ground? Ram Madhav (RM): Yes. A lot of changes. The common masses of J&K are no longer at the mercy […]
The Liberal Waterloo
By destroying everything between the individual and the state, neo-liberals have signed their own death warrant Two historic events which took place around the same time towards the end of 18th century made the US and France the motherships of liberalism in the world. The first was the making of the American constitution that came […]
Why Liberalism Failed ?
Liberalism is an idea with a history of close to five centuries. It got institutionalised in the 18th century through two historic incidents – making of the American Constitution in 1788 and the French Revolution in 1789. These two historical incidents which happened around the same time but 6000 km apart, led to the evolution of […]
Quad must be built on agendas, not emotions. Can’t afford to become another NATO
Jaishankar described the Tokyo Quad meet as ‘consultations’. It needs more than China to become a regional institution. It is important to recall the history of the Quad because alliances have to be formed on agendas, not emotions. From the outset, the US projected and China perceived the Quadrilateral security grouping of US, Japan, Australia and India as the ‘Asian NATO’. […]
War and Peace
War is considered not something to run away from, but to be waged in order to restore the glory of the righteous. War is back. Armenia and Azerbaijan are at war. There is talk of it on the Sino-Indian LAC. Elsewhere, the Chinese navy is wrathful at the American and Japanese naval vessels loitering on […]
Gandhi’s true legacy could help address the democracy deficit in today’s world
On January 30, 1948, the flag of the United Nations Organisation was lowered to half-mast. For the first time, the UN had set aside a day’s session to honour the man just murdered in Delhi. “Not the head of a state, a general or a king, but a lone man who without an army, riches, […]
The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World
Capturing the foreign policy vision, direction and action of a 1.3 billion people-strong country like India in just around 200 pages is an astoundingly difficult task that Dr Jaishankar, India’s current Foreign Minister accomplishes with considerable aplomb. The illustrious son of an equally, if not more, illustrious father – one of India’s doyens of strategic […]