Shekhar Gupta

India just needs clear deterrence against both likely adversaries. With China, it lies in raising costs of aggression to levels it should find unaffordable. For Pakistan, it has to be punitive.

Khaled Ahmed was an editor, author, linguist, newsroom mentor, and a rare genuinely secular agnostic, probably atheist—definitely the only such I have met among my many Muslim friends. And he was no Leftist either.

Charges against Adanis this time are much graver, especially as these come not from any ‘interested' market operator but a sovereign govt. Any quick damage control is unlikely.

Hemant Soren is another big winner, while biggest questions must be asked of Congress. A negative consequence is that freebies have now cemented themselves as an unassailable idea.

Broken cricket relationships in the Subcontinent aren't about any disputes over the game, nor Hindu-Muslim issues. It's about the state of nations, and what goes on between them.

Everybody talks of China as the real threat, but we aren't even building a decisive capability against Pakistan, asserts Shekhar Gupta.

There are 3 perfectly timed triggers for this week's column: old, povertarian instincts are back; steel industry lobbying for more import duties; absence of reformers like AD Shroff.

Even a whiff of an incident like the violent 1989 shirt-ripping attack on Krishnamachari Srikkanth by a Karachi spectator would be ruinous.

BJP's attack was not merely on American ‘Deep State'. The idea had been acquiring currency across ideological lines for some time. It's been given greater legitimacy by Trump.

When RSS sarsanghchalak is calling a halt to rash of ‘masjids built over mandirs' claims, it could stem from realisation that it'll be impossible for BJP govt to maintain order if issue goes out of control.