The reason democracy is thought to be a stable system of governance and preferred over other forms is it is founded on an implicit bargain between citizens and the state. Political scientists call it the social contract, and democratic elections are the way this contract is periodically renewed. Parties whose vision provides citizens better terms […]

Vivek Bhimanwar, Chairman of the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC), was sent on compulsory leave on October 12 after thousands of aspirants staged an 11-day sit-in in Pune, which began on October 2, demanding his resignation. The MPSC conducts recruitment examinations for State government posts, and the students wanted him removed over paper leaks at […]

I, who have never been to India, have discovered how to explore it through its novels. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStock I have never been to India. To me, this country is one of the main, if not the main, laboratories of the contemporary world, from its decades as “the greatest democracy in the world” […]

Whenever Rahul Gandhi’s political inheritance comes under scrutiny, the debate invariably gravitates towards dynastic politics: the Gandhi surname, the 140-year-old Congress party legacy, and the leadership he inherited by virtue of his lineage. Yet, there is a far more consequential dimension to his political journey that rarely receives the attention it deserves: his politics of […]

Barely a fortnight after the arrest of a prominent tribal leader at the forefront of the anti-mining movement in western Odisha’s Niyamgiri region, the billionaire businessman Anil Agarwal met Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on September 26 and renewed his London-headquartered company Vedanta Ltd’s long-standing quest to mine bauxite from the hill range. The arrested […]

In its ongoing dystopian reality, a weekend in which India’s capital, New Delhi, was converted into an armed fortress, with nails hammered into roads, internet shutdowns, and forced detentions, will be followed on October 13 by the start of the eighth edition of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, featuring the who’s who of the world’s […]

What happens when “the tumult and the shouting dies”? Will the students just disperse? Will Abhijit Dipke resume his studies in Boston? Will Modi-Shah (and Gyanesh Kumar) carry on as before? Or will we see a new generation take office? These are loaded questions, for the fact is that after the July demonstrations at Jantar […]

Article 44 of the Constitution declares that “the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India”. For decades, this remained largely a constitutional aspiration. It has now entered the realm of legislation. The trajectory of the debate must therefore move from objections over whether the timing […]

The Union government has confirmed repeatedly over the past year that the main round of Census 2027 will include an enumeration of caste. Yet, media reports in July on the pre-test rehearsal signalled that the promised “caste census” is doomed unless major changes are implemented prior to the start of the main round in snowbound […]

After more than six years of negotiations between the Narendra Modi government and Ladakh’s two principal representative bodies—the Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) and the Leh Apex Body (LAB)—the Centre in September offered the Union Territory a special constitutional arrangement which would provide for an “elected governing body and local administrative autonomy” for the high-altitude desert […]