Delhi’s brutal winter suddenly felt a degree warmer as Vladimir Putin’s aircraft touched down and the capital basked in the diplomatic glow of a ‘Putin Yatra’. The Russian leader’s 2025 visit did more than thaw the December chill; it reignited one of the world’s most durable partnerships and signalled India’s return to the global centre stage with striking self-assurance.

India has never been held together by sword or statute alone. What truly bound this vast land, across centuries and kingdoms, is an invisible thread spun by its saint-poets: a living gospel of compassion, equality, and the oneness of all souls.

Imagine a winter morning so cold and so choked with smog that the Taj Mahal’s white marble appears ghost-grey, almost spectral. The stench in the air burns your lungs with every breath. And right behind the Taj, the Yamuna, once the river that reflected Mughal glory, has turned into a frothing graveyard of toxic foam. It feels as if the Taj itself is mourning a slow, suffocating death.

On 28 November, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment that shook the country to its core. The court cancelled the bail of a man accused of poisoning his wife to death barely four months after marriage, and in doing so, it issued a moral and legal reprimand of rare sharpness. A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and R Mahadevan stressed that ignoring the statutory presumption under Section 113B of the Evidence Act in dowry-death cases is an “unjust and distorted approach.” The judges made it unmistakably clear that dowry killing is not a personal family tragedy; it is a public crime, a blow to the collective conscience, and a direct assault on the very idea of humanity.

​After a long time, I had an opportunity to go to my school to meet someone. Since there was time before the bell, I thought I’d take a round. As I turned the corner, I saw 7–8 kids in the dazzling corridor of an elite school, and the language they were using made my ears go numb. Gen Z’s fast, chopped-up, emoji-dripping tongue… and in every sentence, a four-letter firecracker.

If India’s democracy is still standing after scams, cyclones, cult leaders and campaign speeches longer than the Constitution itself, the secret isn’t federalism, institutions, or constitutional checks and balances.