Blogs

“Wisdom is a light. When its ray shines upon you, it adorns the tongue with right remembrance, the heart with right thought, and the bodily members with right activity,” said Persian Sufi master Hazrat Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī of the early 12th century. Spiritual wisdom is the grace and blessing of the Divine Beloved. When God shines…

Good conversations start with good boundaries. On the surface, the sentence seems harmless and even flattering. It floats across social media timelines, comment sections, and inboxes every single day. Sometimes it’s sent by someone familiar, sometimes by a stranger. And most of the time, it’s ignored—not because it’s welcomed, but because responding feels more burdensome…

In conversation, M Mukundan keeps circling back to the same question—not about his new novel, but about where he now stands as a writer. The discussion moves restlessly across decades: from communism to existentialism, from Albert Camus to love, from language to desire, from belief systems that once promised change to a present where such…

Behind the stage, the air is thick with anxiety. Anklets chime in the corridors as students rush between dressing rooms, their faces caked in glitter makeup. Props line the walls — musical instruments, painted backdrops, half-assembled drama sets waiting for their moment in the spotlight. In the frantic final minutes before curtain-up, some students grab…

As a pediatrician who has cared for children in Delhi for decades, I have seen how modern medicine has transformed childhood health. Infections that once claimed young lives can now be treated effectively. Vaccination programmes, sanitation, and modern medicines have helped millions of children survive and thrive. Antibiotics have played a crucial role in this…

Building community networks of caregiving can help us move away from artificial, privatised care. The house is in chaos. Lata, caregiver to 95-year-old Vinata, has chosen not to return. She is the fourth caregiver to leave in the last two months. Lata is 60 years old and has a daughter who is usually at work….

There is a particular kind of woman I meet often in coaching rooms. She is competent, warm, high-performing, and deeply tired. She speaks with care, edits herself mid-sentence, and apologises when she has done nothing wrong. She is the glue in her family, the stabiliser in her workplace, the one who “handles things”. People call…

When monsoon comes round this year, Mumbai should be better geared for it. Monorails shouldn’t stall on tracks, metro stations shouldn’t get flooded, bridges shouldn’t get cut off…Now that the city has elected its municipal representatives, after a delay of four years, there should be some accountability. It’s unfortunate that India’s richest civic body, with…

The US National Security strategy 2026: Talks of Western hemisphere but is silent on Eastern hemisphere. The renewed assertion of American primacy in the Western Hemisphere—evident in strong operational signaling toward Venezuela and renewed strategic interest in Greenland—marks a decisive return to sphere-of-influence geopolitics. Long considered a relic of the 19th century, the Monroe Doctrine…

Mission-mode programmes are celebrated for delivering immediate, tangible outputs at scale. But lasting social change depends on whether institutions, capacities, and accountability survive beyond the mission. Mission-mode programmes are government initiatives designed to achieve specific, high-priority outcomes within a defined timeframe, supported by focused resources, streamlined processes, and close monitoring. Originally conceived for long-term national goals,…