Page 2 - Shekhar Gupta

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

Mamdani is someone to be proud of, but his ideas haven't worked in India

Zohran Mamdani's faith, support for Gaza, and dislike of Modi and Netanyahu are reasons why many in India are unhappy to see his rise, rather than celebrate it as another 'Indian' conquest

Diminish, deter, de-hyphenate: The 3D solution for India's Pakistan problem

China and Pakistan are in a tight strategic alliance. India must deal with them one at a time, but be prepared in case they decide to collude

H-word, M-word & fading K-word: Stop seeing India through old prisms

If the only superpower, which calls India an ally, sees the region through an India-Pakistan prism, it is unacceptable. Rather than endorse India's sphere of influence, this undermines it

Two fronts & The King's Gambit: China uses Pakistan to triangulate India

It is safer to presume that the Chinese now see Pakistan as an extension of their Western Theatre Command

Asim Munir tightens grip, but that fifth star could spell trouble for India

Asim Munir has locked up Imran Khan, had his handmaiden Parl mangle the Constitution, & given himself an extended tenure. But the additional jingle of that fifth star will not change facts on ground

Indians must eschew prejudice if they want the 'narrative' on their side

Victimhood is often seductive and we have cultivated it into some kind of a chronic disease across generations. There are, however, many problems with this proposition

Pak's 7-year itch resurfaces, but is India's deterrence enough this time?

Pakistani establishments and their proxies are prone to a severe, predictable 7-year itch. Each step up the escalation ladder buys India about these many years of deterrence on average

Why General Munir may have seen Kashmir normalcy as a threat to 'destiny'

The April 22 Pahalgam attack may be rooted in a deeper anxiety inside GHQ Rawalpindi, where Kashmir's peace disrupts the old script of rebellion and resistance

SEAD, off-ramp, and the Pahalgam trigger: A conflict vocabulary grows

Terms like kinetic action, SEAD, and escalatory ladder now define how India and Pakistan are scripting a conflict that shows no signs of stepping off the warpath

Operation Sindoor mix: Surprise, optics and audacity define Indian strikes

Everybody in Pakistan, and indeed in India, knew strikes were a matter of not 'whether' but 'when'. The Modi govt utilised these 14 days after Pahalgam to build an impression that there was no hurry

Caste census: A fraught & electorally-loaded idea forcing its way in

One of the reasons we call the caste census a bad idea is that so far, nobody has figured what to do with the data, except Rahul Gandhi

Pahalgam terrorist attack: Pakistan's ISI targets Hindus, tests India

At some point, the ISI's calculation has been, Hindus will rise in reprisal against their own minorities. That's a crisis they've been conjuring up in India. A nation at war with itself

To beat Modi, Opposition needs new ideas-not nostalgia and caste math

Stuck in the past, the Opposition is recycling slogans while Modi scripts a new political grammar

When 2 elephants fight: India eyes opportunity in US-China trade war

At the very least, there might be things India can make for the US markets that the Chinese can't compete with, given these tariffs