Shekhar Gupta

The failed Marshal Doctrine: Pak's most 'creative' military dictatorship

In the exact period that Gen Munir has been consolidating power, his counterparts in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have eschewed it with remarkable dignity and professionalism

Time for selectors and coach to go as Indian cricket made to grovel at home

The India-South Africa series-defining fact is the catastrophic decline of Indian red ball cricket, where a visiting team can mock us with the 'grovel' word

Tejas crash highlights India's history of playing catch-up in air power

It is a brilliant, reasonably priced, and mostly homemade aircraft with a stellar safety record; only two crashes in 24 years since its first flight. But its crash is a moment of introspection

The BJP will now look to become a dominant force in a post-Nitish Bihar

The outcome marks the end of Lalu as a political force. While Nitish's phase is a matter of time, the BJP has a hawk's eye. If only they could find some serious local leadership

Congress must first try some humility if it wants to best the BJP

There can be no challenge to the BJP across India without a Congress revival. The Modi party is growing - almost entirely at the cost of the Congress

Bihar: The first republic, the lost republic, thanks to political obsession

Bihar is blessed with a land more fertile for revolutions than any in India. Why has it fallen so far behind then? Constant obsession with politics is at the root of its destruction

New currency of hard power: How Trump turned US imports into an asset

If China is an exporting superpower, America is an importing one. Mr Trump has turned what would usually be a liability into an asset

Deepfake on duty: How AI is taking fake news to an entirely new level

I told Grok to look at Op Sindoor-related gallantry award citations, and found that AI promises facts but can make them up. It's taking fake news to a different level, and it has been fully gamed

Caste, power, and pain: When even privilege can't guarantee dignity

Education, reservations, and govt jobs are meant to bring equality and dignity. That we are a long way from it is evident in the shoe thrown at the CJI and the suicide of Haryana IPS officer

How Pakistan thinks: Munir's outreach to Trump signals return to normal

The US never dropped Pakistan from the list of Major Non-Nato allies. India never got on to it, nor would it ever be an applicant for it

Engagement Farmers' Cup 2025: Rethinking cricket ties with Pakistan

Many really smart people now share the position that playing cricket with Pakistan is politically, strategically, and morally wrong. It is just a poor appreciation of competitive sport

Regimes collapse because of weak institutions, not leaders or ideologies

To be truly functional and durable, even eternal, a state doesn't just need a leader, a party, or an ideology. It needs functional and robust institutions

If PM Narendra Modi can plan Bihar tour, why not visit flood-hit Punjab?

Punjab reels from floods as political fault lines deepen - Sikh leadership rifts, BJP's Punjab strategy, and separatist propaganda fuel alienation

That Oval Office frame & India: Lessons from Trump's deal with Europe

Putin sees this as a victory. Europeans have decided to deal with Trump on his terms for the sake of the larger Western alliance. We look at the lessons for us in India

IAF vs PAF: War of doctrines and the question of aircraft downings

Now that both the IAF and PAF have made their formal claims of having shot down the other's aircraft in the 87-hour, predominantly aerial conflagration in May, we can ask a larger question

To handle Trump's irrationality, India must fix its own bipolar discourse

To protect ourselves from Trumpian diplomacy, we must first introspect the bipolarity within our establishment discourse. You could start with Modi's rise in the summer of 2014

Indira's India & Modi's Bharat: A comparative look at two political eras

As Narendra Modi becomes India's second-longest consecutively serving Prime Minister, we look at how he compares with Indira Gandhi across four key dimensions

Joys of Trumplomacy: Public, loud, and focused on American supremacy

Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise, sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy

Bhagwat sets off jitters at 75: BJP's shift towards empowering youth

BJP had no dynastic succession, at least not at the top. You can trace this back to the Vajpayee-Advani era

Kutch key to Sindoor sequel: Forgotten war holds lessons for future plans

Kutch is our most forgotten war with Pakistan. Learn from it and draw up a plan for the next six months, two years and five years