Retired? Don't hang up your boots. Join politics, raise slogans, lead a crowd and live longer. No gym membership required, no expensive health supplements!

"Show us even a single project in this country where these alleged environmental activists have said that we welcome this project… In this country, this kind of litigation is filed only to stall all development projects." Chief Justice Surya Kant's bench made these remarks on 11 May while hearing a challenge to the environmental clearance for expanding Gujarat's Pipavav Port. They touched a nerve in a long-running debate: are India's self-appointed guardians of nature protecting the environment, or using ecological concerns to block economic progress?

What if a foreign company could disrupt India’s military communications during a war? What if a few clicks thousands of miles away could affect our drones, weaken our defences and give an enemy the upper hand? Should India throw open its doors to Elon Musk without asking some tough questions? Can the glitter of high-speed internet blind us to the dangers of handing over a vital national lifeline to a private company?

​When every hand holds a mobile phone, every phone becomes a newsroom, and every social media influencer starts calling himself a journalist, who will separate the genuine from the fake? Does holding a camera replace professional training? Does shouting at a government officer qualify someone as a journalist? And does merely claiming to belong to the press entitle anyone to special protection and privileges? These are uncomfortable questions. But they can no longer be brushed under the carpet.

Ever since the loudmouth Donald Trump returned to the White House, the world has been living dangerously. It sometimes feels as if World War III is waiting for his next social media post. The world has come close to disaster three or four times. Trump's tongue fires missiles, his mind changes like the weather, and his decisions turn a roaring lion in the morning into a frightened kitten by evening.

Imagine two lives separated by three generations. One belongs to a small-town schoolteacher in the 1970s. The other belongs to his grandson, an IT professional today. The difference is nothing short of a revolution.