As the curtain falls on 2025, the national mood is not one of festive reflection, but of exhausted survival. To look back at the last twelve months is to survey a landscape scarred by systemic failure, economic volatility, and a fraying social fabric. For India, 2025 was not merely a challenging year; it was annus horribilis — a year where the safety nets of governance, diplomacy, and civil decency seemed to unravel all at once.

Season of calamity: From pilgrimages to flight paths

The year began with the heavy silence of grief. The Maha Kumbh stampede on Mauni Amavasya turned a moment of spiritual peak into a site of unimaginable tragedy, exposing the hollow core of our disaster management protocols.

This was followed by a chilling return of terror; the Pahalgam attack — where Hindu tourists were systematically targeted — and subsequent strikes in Delhi shattered the illusion of a 'normalised' security landscape as the government machinery would have us........

© National Herald