Age Of Anxiety

No country for women: In India, true gender equality proves elusive as attitudes are out of sync with legislation

The silent march of women needs to be recognised by fathers, husbands, sons and in-laws; only then will the sullen and grudging ‘acceptance’ of women as equal partners show itself in attitudinal changes.

Fixing India’s cities needs cutting the Gordian Knot: Failure, inaction are roadblocks to leveraging urbanisation for good

The Government of India needs to build whole-of-system capacity for urban transformation, ensuring that all urban actors learn about complexity and understand the city as a ‘system of systems’. It is imperative that we work collectively to cut the Gordian Knot – abandon the dogmas that confuse and confound us – and secure a sustainable, just and equitable urban future for all.

The unbearable incandescence of India’s millenarian impulse — and the path that led here

Modern India has been awash with millenarian ideological projects — from the Left rising in West Bengal of 1970-1972 that ended with the slaughter of 5,000 young people or more by the State and criminal militia; the ethnic-religious carnage let loose from the late-1980s by jihadists in Kashmir or Khalistanis in Punjab.

Post-nationalism and the notion of ‘ordinary’ person: How India shifted from a people-driven republic to a State-driven one

In recent times, the binary between what we are and what we do has largely collapsed. This, in turn, is due to the fact that rather than a people-driven republic, we are a state-driven one: our sense of what we are has very significantly been provided by the political leadership in power.

Will India's economic downturn spur course correction, or will Hindu nationalism enable the decline to perpetuate itself?

That India’s optimistic future is overtaken by concerns about the road ahead. Bangladesh’s rise seems more imminent than India’s. Will economic decline spur course correction? Or, will Hindu nationalism enable the decline to perpetuate itself?