The late head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, was fond of boasting that when Afghanistan’s history came to be written, it would record that the ISI, with the help …
Articles by: "Shashi Tharoor"
It is humbling when a columnist must retract his words soon after penning them. Just two months ago, after India rushed millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines to over 60 countries, I praised the country’s …
A flurry of assaults on freedom of the press in recent months has raised troubling questions about the state of India’s democracy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India has long had a free and often …
As countries scramble to secure Covid-19 vaccines, ugly expressions like ‘vaccine race’ and ‘vaccine nationalism’ have entered the global lexicon. But, at a time when global cooperation in sharing vaccines is minimal, and the World …
Until recently, the last time Myanmar’s military supervised a general election whose outcome it didn’t like was back in 1990. On that occasion, a military junta refused to recognise the results, arrested the democratically elected …
Indian legislators woke up in the new year to two realisations. First, the annual winter session of parliament, from which they should just have been emerging, had not taken place at all. And, second, New …
As if the raging Covid-19 pandemic, a spluttering economy, record-high unemployment and massive farmers’ protests besieging the country’s capital weren’t enough, India’s ruling Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has now incited a new crisis: a …
Beyond the major headlines surrounding the US presidential election, a little-noticed development is attracting attention both in India and among American campaign strategists. The rising influence of the Indian-American community in the United States—though barely …
On 24 October, the United Nations will celebrate the 75th anniversary of its founding in 1945, when the historic UN Charter entered into force. Sadly, the organisation will do so at a time when multilateralism …
After a nearly six-month hiatus, the Indian parliament reconvenes today in the midst of a deepening national crisis. But I fear that it may be unable to hold the country’s failing government to account. Parliament …
As India prepares to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of its independence on 15 August, a growing number of Indians are coming to believe that the battle to preserve the essence of the country born in …
After last month’s clash in the Ladakh region’s Galwan Valley killed 20 Indian soldiers and an unknown number of Chinese troops, the two countries are settling in for a prolonged standoff on their disputed Himalayan …