Recent events have proved that India’s democratic structure, despite its messiness, can be more responsive and representative than the more rigid American system, which largely serves a smaller population, less heterogeneous and more prosperous than India.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar recently asserted a fundamental truth: India’s destiny will be forged by its own intrinsic strength, not by the grace or grievances of others.

A democracy, like applause, cannot function with one hand alone. It is sustained by the essential interplay, the understanding, restraint, and constructive dialogue between the government and the opposition. When the House falls silent due to obstruction, it is not just business that halts; the very vitality of democracy diminishes.

In India, the internet’s promise of enlightened progress is being paradoxically hijacked to spread regressive thought. Digital platforms, especially WhatsApp and YouTube, have become powerful conduits for astrologers, religious demagogues, and mythologists to broadcast archaic and fundamentalist ideas.

If politics were just about numbers, India's opposition would be a formidable force ready to storm the citadel of power. But in the brutal arena of Indian democracy, raw seat counts mean little without conviction, cohesion, and a compelling counter-narrative. And, on those crucial fronts, the opposition remains woefully short.

Recently, speaking at the Nagpur Book Festival on November 29, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat challenged a controversial observation in Mahatma Gandhi’s 1909 classic Hind Swaraj—the claim that India emerged as a nation only because of British rule.

Have India’s national honours been reduced to a geopolitical wink and nod? The Congress Party’s decision to confer its prestigious Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development on Michelle Bachelet, a figure whose tenure as UN Human Rights Chief repeatedly cast India in a suspicious light, has ignited a storm that refuses to die down. What should have been a dignified ceremony has turned into a pointed political statement, raising a blunt question: Is the Congress now comfortable validating voices that consistently challenge India on global platforms...

Once upon a time, Indian university campuses roared with slogans like "Inquilab Zindabad!" and "Hum laaye hain toofan se kashti nikal ke!". The walls of universities weren't just stone; they glowed red with the fire of ideas. BHU, Allahabad, Delhi, Lucknow – every campus buzzed with debates, and student leaders' speeches ignited passion. Today? Silence.

Student uprisings once shook Nepal, Bangladesh, and, decades earlier, Egypt. Governments toppled, but democracy never quite found its footing. Why then does democracy endure in India and the United States, while faltering elsewhere? The answer lies in one word… diversity.

My bag has been a trusted companion in my life—no ordinary bag, but a symbol of my personality, my thoughts, and my habits. For fifty years, it has been by my side—sometimes filled with books, sometimes with papers, and at other times, with dreams.