FrontLine

Looking back

Six eminent writers look back at 2025 across six broad areas: money, technology, wellness, relationships, language, and social media.

Not as good as it looks

Despite tall claims of expanded social security, stronger worker protections, and the rollout of modern work arrangements, the new Labour Codes, trade unions argue, dismantle job security and push the entire workforce into greater precariousness.

Chhattisgarh: An unquiet peace

Twenty- ve years after Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, the State’s story is being retold not through glossy brochures or choreographed silver jubilee celebrations but through the fractured voices of its young citizens. Angry reels,...

The horse that outran the eld

The NDA’S sweeping victory in Bihar rested on a nine-point vote share lead and an exceptional mobilisation of women voters, even as the Mahagathbandhan failed to draw support across caste groups.

Wild and welcome

10/Conserving nature is not about fencing forests but about sustaining the knowledge, culture, and land-use systems that bind people and nature together, especially in a densely populated country like India.

One hundred years of neglect

10/ The exploitation Bihar suŠered during colonial rule, resource extraction without investment or development, continued well after Independence too. It will take a marriage of good governance and social justice movements for the State to reclaim its...

An enduring idea

10/ The 100-year-old Self-respect Movement, rooted in the ideas of annihilation of caste, equality, and women’s liberation, is expanding beyond the borders of Tamil Nadu. 28/ Interview with Siddiq Wahid on the Ladakh crisis 33/ Paralysis in...

MODI IN MANIPUR

A case of too little, too late, say both Meitei and Kuki leaders

What a fall

If the Election Commission of India, once a venerable institution, nds its image and reputation sullied, it has only itself to blame. Its opacity, its refusal to share even basic data, and its readiness to bend rules in favour of the ruling...

Let’s go back to school

When education is treated as a managerial concern rather than a political one, it ignores the deeper truth that schools are sites where citizens, societies, and the very future of democracy are shaped. This special issue explores the possibilities of...

Gross Domestic Propaganda

10/ While the government- and media-driven narrative, centred on headline GDP gures and buoyant stock markets, paints the picture of an India on the cusp of superpower status, the reality is a fragile and uncompetitive economy that is driving both...

Uneasy future

10/ Israel under Netanyahu has repeatedly breached not only diplomatic but also humanitarian red lines with its assault on Gaza and unprovoked attack on Iran. But any seeming victory will be short-lived because the deep fault lines now etched in West...

Many horses on the caste course

10/ Despite Bihar’s several urgent problems, caste remains the fulcrum of its politics, and the only new push from the main parties, the RJD, the JD(U), the BJP, and the Congress, ahead of the next election is to reach out to social groupings that are...

Nagarahole and the ght for forest land

The monsoon rain hammered the black tarpaulin canopy where 40 Jenu Kuruba, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group who are historically honey gatherers (jenu means honey in Kannada), huddled against the chill in their newly formed hamlet in the...

Tracing the nation’s path

10/ If one can read a country’s dreamscapes through films, then Raj Kapoor’s journey from Aag to Ram Teri Ganga Maili shows the youthful hopes of the early films gradually shrink as shadows of the past and the brute power of wealth take over the...

A fragile peace

The burden of history and the demographic realities of South Asia have made Pakistan not just a foreign policy issue but a domestic one as well. The latest round of hostilities has thrown this fact into sharp relief once again.

A valley violated

The Pahalgam terror attack has shattered the government’s narrative of “normalcy” in Kashmir, and it must now weigh its responses carefully, balancing security concerns with true democracy for the Kashmiris.

Time for a judicial complaints commission: Prashant Bhushan

The much-publicised recovery of charred bundles of currency notes—allegedly found after a fire broke out in an outhouse at the official residence of Delhi High Court judge Justice Yashwant Varma on March 14, 2025—has once again brought issues of...

The battle for Bodh Gaya’s sacred heart

In Union Budget 2024-25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the Mahabodhi temple corridor in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, would be developed into a world-class pilgrimage and tourism site modelled on the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor of...

Decoding the Pak-bangla bonhomie

The bonhomie between Bangladesh and Pakistan, evident in their increased engagement on multiple fronts, coincides with changes in Bangladesh’s political landscape. This shift has far-reaching implications, not only for India but for the entire South...

After the fog of war

The Israel-hamas war has not only forced Israel back into dependence on the US, but it has significantly impacted Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Türkiye, and even opened up China’s role in the region. How will things play out now?

The alarming haste to rebuild Teesta III dam

The Central government seems to have prioritised corporate interests over public safety in recommending environmental clearance to rebuild the Teesta III Hydroelectric Power Project in Sikkim. This 1,200 megawatt dam was washed away in a devastating...

Prabhat Patnaik: Neoliberalism heralds neo-fascism

The market economy tempered by social ethics as advocated by economists like Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, Maynard Keynes, Amartya Sen and many others has not only been replaced by “asocial neoliberalism” but also, in the current phase, by mighty...

Hasdeo Arand: A long tale of state-corporate nexus

For over 11 years, Hasdeo Arand, central India’s largest unfragmented forest and the last surviving pristine forest, has echoed with the cries of resistance and been stained with the blood of those who have dared to stand up for it. On the morning of...

Making their nations great again

With Trump set to return to the White House, the challenge for India and the US is to make their relationship non-reversible and transformative. But given Trump’s mercurial temperament, especially his penchant for turning on allies, the Indian...

40 YEARS OF SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER

HAS WOMAN VOTER ARRIVED?

It’s high time

10/ Despite its religious and cultural significance, and a tradition dating back to ancient times, cannabis continues to be vilified. In step with many other nations, perhaps we should revisit the taboos around the plant, recast its role as an...

Propriety, not just property In review

08/ The outcomes of the Waqf law amendment will resonate far beyond the con nes of legal texts, and the government would do well to cautiously balance the much-needed reforms with protecting the rights of the Muslim community.

Assam’s Hoolock gibbons under threat from oil

Deconstructing the results in Haryana and J&K

Manipur becomes hotspot for deadly weapons

At the peak of counter-insurgency operations in Manipur in the mid-2000s, banned Meitei insurgent groups such as the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), and the People’s...

The IELTS brides of Punjab

In February this year, Harman, a 19-year-old woman from Dhogri village in Punjab’s Jalandhar district, was busy with her wedding preparations. Still fresh out of school, she had not intended to marry so soon, but life had other plans for her. “The...

Turmoil and aftermath in Bangladesh

In his first televised address to the nation, Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus laid out his vision of reform. But can his government really deliver what successive governments, including prior caretaker governments, have failed to do since the...

Wayanad: An avoidable tragedy

Behind the return of militancy in Jammu

On January 13, 2023, following a series of terrorist attacks in Jammu’s Rajouri and Poonch districts near the Line of Control (LOC) with Pakistan, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced a three-month strategy to combat militancy in the region and...

The future looks hot

India has just emerged from the longest heatwave in its history. Will the government now take climate change seriously?

The fallacy of one nation, one examination

10/ Instead of a one-size- ts-all approach, what is needed is an admissions system that combines the score of an aptitude test with the academic performance of students to make the merit list.

It is high time you heard of PECDA

In the 12 years of its existence, the biennial dance competition, Prakriti Excellence in Contemporary Dance Awards, has created a valuable ecology for dance practice in India, where resources and opportunities for dancers are still scarce. Dancers in...