menu_open Columnists

ThePrint

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

How Indians came to lose the right to protest

Fascism in Europe emerged from the deep crisis that followed the First World War. But authoritarianism in India was a conservative force, seeking to...

yesterday 10

ThePrint

Praveen Swami

The real SIR failure may lie in newsrooms, not only in the Election Commission

Hyper-virality and poor data literacy can amplify half-baked claims; the media's inability to analyse context ruins public perception and democracy.

yesterday 20

ThePrint

R Jagannathan

India has achieved some closure for Pahalgam. Can it stop the next attack?

The measure of success will not be how many declarations carry the word ‘Pahalgam’, but whether the next attack is stopped before it begins. On...

yesterday 10

ThePrint

Tehmeena Rizvi

Marco Rubio’s Athens speech is a warning to the non-Western world. India too

India is not in the crosshairs of America like Iran, Russia or China. But let us not kid ourselves.

yesterday 10

ThePrint

Jaithirth Rao

India and Sri Lanka must move beyond Katchatheevu to save the Palk Bay

The Palk Bay is a shared ecological system whose resources are finite. Its health ultimately determines whether fishing communities on either side can...

yesterday 3

ThePrint

Milinda Moragoda

Pakistan’s Mecca Pact ambition has a problem—too many fronts, too little room

Pakistan’s commitments to Saudi Arabia come as militancy at home, tensions with Afghanistan and ties with Iran constrain Islamabad’s room for...

yesterday 4

ThePrint

Sonam Mahajan

How long should a PhD take? Completing sooner doesn’t mean better research

There is no need to make PhD programmes shorter or longer for their own sake. The objective is clear — timely completion of rigorous research.

yesterday 10

ThePrint

Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar

Is Karan Johar too global, too mature for Bollywood gossip on Koffee with Karan?

The final season of Koffee with Karan promises one last ride through Bollywood’s secrets, but Johar’s global appearances hint that mischief may be...

previous day 10

ThePrint

Triya Gulati

India’s Zorawar talk is stuck in wars of the past. Look beyond the mountain tank

Drones, robotics, and AI have transformed the battlespace. India needs a networked, situationally aware Zorawar that is designed as the striking...

previous day 10

ThePrint

Ajay Ahlawat

China is watching Jantar Mantar protests. Blames unemployment

Provocative headlines asking whether the economic myth surrounding Modi’s 12 years in power is nearing collapse are widespread.

previous day 10

ThePrint

Sana Hashmi

Is AIADMK staring at irrelevance? Two Tamil Nadu bypolls, one warning

By themselves, the two by-elections point to neither duopoly nor disintegration in Tamil Nadu, but many are already asking whether this is the...

previous day 5

ThePrint

Mukund Padmanabhan

Asim Munir has plucked the last thorn from Pakistan’s democratic rose

The last time Pakistan dismissed an opposition-led provincial government, the Baloch insurgency spread like wildfire. This phase of insurgency lasted...

previous day 3

ThePrint

Bantirani Patro

Why Bangladesh cannot afford to trade India for China

Bangladesh's future will be determined less by the power of distant benefactors than by the wisdom with which it manages its neighbourhood.

previous day 5

ThePrint

Lt Gen Pradeep C Nair

The EC is doing a better job than the judiciary with its ‘virtue-signalling’ judges

Judges like Bhuyan and Nariman should stop virtue-signalling and focus on judicial reforms instead of pontificating on another constitutional body,...

tuesday 20

ThePrint

R Jagannathan

I drove Audi’s new Q3 in Goa. It’s fun behind the wheel, but has two big gaps

The first Q3 helped Audi cross 10,000 annual sales in India. But in the first half of 2026, Mercedes-Benz and BMW each came close to 10,000 units,...

tuesday 10

ThePrint

Kushan Mitra

What’s the counterweight to ECI? A Supreme Court of not-yets, not-nows, not-heres

We examined the Supreme Court’s record over the past six years in cases involving the ECI, and found that the Court has rarely told the Commission...

tuesday 6

ThePrint

Gokul Sunoj

CEC selection can’t rest on goodwill of the majority. Apply merit, seniority & transparency

Here is a suggestion that prevents ‘capture by rules’. Can we design something that makes neutrality and fair play a matter of rational choice?

tuesday 10

ThePrint

Sanjeev Chopra

Neha Bora, Ratna Singh and a new summer of women’s discontent

Neither fear nor its accomplice, isolation, is working on the women out on Delhi’s roads. Not the 29-year-old and certainly not the 72-year-old.

tuesday 20

ThePrint

Karanjeet Kaur

What 3 RBI papers reveal about inflation and Indian households

Indian kitchens saw inflation before statisticians did. The RBI is finally taking note.

tuesday 20

ThePrint

Bidisha Bhattacharya

Why India must obsess over growth

India's richest 10% remain poor by global standards. Why economic growth, productive jobs and rising incomes are essential to improving living...

tuesday 7

ThePrint

Renuka V Sane

Viksit Bharat 2047 is a self-defeating slogan. PM Modi needs a new one

Whoever is writing PM Narendra Modi’s slogans and speeches nowadays is really tired of his job or has run out of original ideas.

12.10.2026 20

ThePrint

D.k. Singh

Noorjahan has an opinion. Kerala’s clerical orthodoxy can’t accept a Muslim woman’s voice

Shabnam Noorjahan is a feminist who speaks against the niqab, a face-covering veil worn by some Muslim women. She is called a ‘Sufinist’—coined...

12.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Anand Kochukudy

GST reforms step in right direction. Businesses need protection from coercive tax enforcement

GST brought multiple central and state taxes under one umbrella. The latest proposals aim to make compliance easier and enforcement fairer for...

12.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Meenakashi Lekhi

CJP protest was ‘high drama’ for TV, papers and digital news—detentions, clashes, lockdown

On Saturday morning, all eyes were on Jantar Mantar in Delhi, the proposed site of the SIR protest. For the next few hours on TV news, all they showed...

12.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Shailaja Bajpai

Fake firms, mule accounts, fake invoices. GST fraud is now a service industry

GST input tax credit fraud cases rose from 9,190 in 2023-24 to 15,283 in 2024-25 and nearly doubled to 30,162 in 2025-26.

12.10.2026 10

ThePrint

Avinash Pandey

Washington returns to Myanmar. Will India lose strategic space?

A strategic consideration appears to be influencing the Trump administration's recent outreach to Myanmar: critical minerals. It could have security...

12.10.2026 10

ThePrint

Rami Niranjan Desai

Hinge is trying to change how Indians date. Good luck with that

A waitlist, screenshot protection and profile verification are Hinge’s latest answers to India’s dating woes. The bigger question is who gets to...

12.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Ratan Priya

Bollywood spy comedies are no Johnny English. Licensed to kill, struggling to amuse

Our spies can blow up Pakistan, save the country, and fight an army of villains, but making audiences laugh at them seems to be a different mission...

12.10.2026 6

ThePrint

Harsh Tiwari

Drag is not ‘womanface’. It’s more than just men pretending to be women

When drag queens glue massive lashes to their eyelids, stack wigs on their head, and paint lips twice their normal size, they’re not merely...

12.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Prasanna Bachchhav

We’re all zombies now. Our hobbies are dead & even fun is work

In this zombie economy, we are too exhausted to leave the main storyline and too exhausted to enjoy the few detours we manage.

12.10.2026 10

ThePrint

Samah Qundeel

Michael Douglas spills the tea in his memoir. It’s real, raw & unfiltered

In One Helluva Ride, Douglas recounts affairs and bad decisions alongside the glamour. It’s a reminder that celebrity memoirs should offer more than...

12.10.2026 7

ThePrint

Tarini Unnikrishnan

Grey patches on your skin? It may not be melasma

Ashy dermatosis can look like ordinary pigmentation but lies deeper in the skin. Treating it blindly can leave patients frustrated and their skin...

11.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Deepali Bhardwaj

Sarus cranes dance for love. Its future rests with India’s farmers

Sarus cranes are best viewed in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Their distribution is more limited in parts of Assam and West Bengal, while sightings in...

11.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Bharati Chaturvedi

L’affaire ECI—what former judges’ open letter gets wrong about SIR

By introducing the SIR and making several systemic and process changes, the Election Commission of India has weaponised the constitutional authority...

11.10.2026 10

ThePrint

M.g. Devasahayam

Durga Puja displayed aristocratic power in colonial India. It still has traces of that legacy

Long before Kolkata's Durga Puja became a grand public celebration, the festival unfolded inside the mansions of Bengal's wealthy families.

11.10.2026 10

ThePrint

Mousumi Roy

AI is not intelligent. We have just lowered the bar

The machines have not risen to our standard. We are lowering the standard to meet them. Each essay is marked for fluency instead of understanding.

11.10.2026 10

ThePrint

Pranav Sharma

Rajinikanth is the OG badass grandpa of Indian cinema. Retirement can wait

From Robot to Jailer 2, the superstar has continued to headline films on his own terms even as ageing male actors are being cast as fathers and...

11.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Harsh Tiwari

Rekha is still hot. Beauty police have no notes

As Rekha turns 71 today, nobody conducts a forensic examination of her jawline, skin, waistline or hairline. The verdict is unanimous: Gorgeous, diva,...

11.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Stela Dey

Psychiatric ward should be a sanctuary, not prison. It’s a privilege few can afford in India

What does it take—and what does it cost—to help a fractured mind find its way home?

11.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Shreevatsa Nevatia

Counting the visible, missing the invisible—the limits of India’s disability rights system

With the RPwD Act completing 10 years, we looked at one of the key mechanisms through which it is operationalised: the Unique Disability ID system.

11.10.2026 8

ThePrint

Nipun Malhotra

Tom Cruise was not a ‘hero’ in Digger. No wonder the film flopped

At 64, Tom Cruise swaps death-defying stunts for a flawed oil baron in his latest film Digger. But audiences are not ready to see their favourite...

11.10.2026 7

ThePrint

Harsh Tiwari

An AR Rahman song is the script for marriage-minded misses on Instagram. And those opposing it

Some women are using AR Rahman’s ‘Mental Manadhil’ to celebrate their freedom, while others are posting wedding videos with it.

11.10.2026 8

ThePrint

Himanshi Aggarwal

Modi’s obsession with UP elections is blinding him to larger reality. He’s helping Rahul, CJP

What started as an anti-Gyanesh movement has now become an anti-Modi movement. Why is the prime minister willing to risk so much for the sake of the...

11.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Vir Sanghvi

Salman, are you okay, bro? But first, let me subscribe to your YouTube channel

In the latest development in the ever-expanding Salman Khan Cinematic Universe, Bhai has launched his own YouTube channel.

11.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Triya Gulati

Anne Carson’s Nobel win is big news, but 19 female winners isn’t enough

Anne Carson joins a rare club of female Nobel winners. Literary merit isn't just about counting trophies—it determines who gets read, translated,...

10.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Stela Dey

Anne Carson is a literary Houdini. Her diabolical brilliance got her the Nobel

Even as Anne Carson remains difficult to categorise, she is hardly obscure. Most of us agree it was a long time coming.

10.10.2026 10

ThePrint

Debdutta Chakraborty

What bypoll results say about ‘vote theft’ politics and Gen Z protests

It would be imprudent to see the results as a national verdict on the Opposition’s ‘vote theft’ campaign. They do, however, suggest that the...

10.10.2026 20

ThePrint

D.k. Singh

No one does gossip like Karan Johar. He knows how to spill the tea on Koffee with Karan

After 22 years of spilling industry secrets, Koffee with Karan is set to start its final season on 14 October, and Bollywood gossip will never be the...

10.10.2026 20

ThePrint

Triya Gulati

Sharjeel Imam wants to pick up where 1946 left off. A Sikh reads the fine print

I am a practising, turbaned Sikh. I disagree with most of the long interview Sharjeel Imam has given from prison, serious as it is.

10.10.2026 20

ThePrint

K.b.s Sidhu

Democracy has become a ritualised affair producing banal results: Lionel Fernandes

Pre-election and post-election voters’ committees should scrutinise programmes of political parties and should conduct an ongoing political audit,...

10.10.2026 10

ThePrint

Lionel Fernandes