There is a particular kind of insect that survives nuclear winters, chemical warfare, and every extermination attempt humanity has thrown at it. This summer, thousands of India's brightest young minds decided that was the animal they wanted to be. To understand why tens of thousands of 19-year-olds spent their summer camped on pavement instead of preparing for medical school, you have to rewind to the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test of 2024; the exam that first cracke

Decades after Mao Zedong first became the chairman of the Chinese communist party, his glorified legacy continues to live on — in the hearts of Chinese nationalists, within sociopolitical culture, and through the giant portrait that prominently overlooks Tiananmen Square in Beijing. However, there is a significant contrast between the official narrative surrounding Mao within China and the interpretations of many historians outside China. The ideological gap between Western p

The National Democratic Alliance in December 2021 repealed three farm laws it had spent months insisting were necessary and non-negotiable. Coincidentally, they were timed to precede state elections that the government could not afford to lose, while nothing in the underlying shape of agricultural markets was rebuilt in their place. It cost the government nothing other than the appearance of having lost. Perhaps mathematics works differently in politics, for this was the chea

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, was killed in a joint US-Israeli strike on a compound in Tehran on the morning of February 28, 2026. The strike also killed his daughter, son-in-law, a grandchild, commander of the IRGC, the defence minister, and the armed forces chief of staff. The Pentagon named it Operation Epic Fury. Eight days later, the succession question was closed: Khamenei’s son Mojtaba was named the new Supreme Leader. A regime, it turns out, can survi