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In a sharply argued opinion piece on NDTV , Shashi Tharoor has sounded the alarm on the growing China–Pakistan strategic convergence. He has described it as a deliberate and durable alliance designed to encircle and contain India. Far beyond arms deals and UN vetoes, Tharoor identifies the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a calculated attempt by Beijing to secure maritime access and embed itself deeper in South Asia — including through India’s own territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Image Source: ST on X He has highlighted Pakistan’s growing reliance on China for economic lifelines and diplomatic cover, particularly on cross-border terrorism, and warns that Beijing is using Islamabad to divert India’s strategic focus and undermine its regional ambitions. The Pakistan-China Embrace, And Why India Can't Afford To Ignore It: my opinion piece in @ndtv https://t.co/x3zCRVTFa8 — Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) July 4, 2025 Tharoor stresses that India must respond w...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman There was a time when Smriti Irani was the ruling Indian political party, the BJP’s showstopper, a former soap queen turned political slayer who handed Rahul Gandhi a shock defeat in Amethi back in 2019. She was an icon of ambition, grit, and transformation, or so they told her story. But as India’s electoral tide turned last summer, Irani found herself on the wrong end of a quiet political battle. This battle was not led by dynastic clout or prime-time optics but by a man they mocked as a “peon” and that was a fitting departure for her from Amethi. Image Source: Dr. Nimo Yadav on X Kishori Lal Sharma didn’t have glamorous titles or PR agencies. He had four decades of ground work, loyalty to the Gandhi family, and, as it turned out, the pulse of Amethi remained in his favour till the very last vote was polled.  When he promised he would defeat Irani, people laughed. But on result day, it was a complete political obliteration, the annihilation of Irani's sh...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman In a quiet hotel room in Geneva—far from the chaos of home, surrounded by a foreign tongue, and engulfed in the solitude that often comes with idealism lived abroad—a young Indian diplomat sat with a question gnawing at him: What does charity really mean? Image Source: Shashi Tharoor on X Shashi Tharoor had just begun his career at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and found himself increasingly troubled by the optics of benevolence. How charity is often less about transformation, and more about performance.  How the giver occupies the centre of the frame, while the receiver is reduced to a token.  And in that lonely room, wrestling with the quiet dissonance of it all, he wrote a short story that would come to define perhaps what is the making of his early literary voice: The Five Dollar Smile . The story, first published in The Illustrated Weekly of India , and later turned into the title piece of his collection, flips th...

Prominent Indian lawmaker Shashi Tharoor held key discussions with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and senior Russian lawmakers on Tuesday.  These transpired during the Primakov Readings, which is  a leading international forum on global security and foreign policy, held annually in Moscow. Image Source: Russia Today on X On the sidelines of the forum, Tharoor, who chairs India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs and is a senior leader of the Indian National Congress, met Lavrov for discussions on the current state of international affairs.  A former Under-Secretary-General at the United Nations and one of India’s most prominent foreign policy voices, Tharoor’s engagement in Moscow shows New Delhi’s ongoing outreach to major global players amid rising geopolitical shifts. Separately, Tharoor also met with Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee. The two lawmakers discussed a range of global issues, in...

✍️ Written by Saket Suman “Just landed in London on @airindia from Delhi to the awful news of the crash. My heart goes out to the families of the victims. 🕉️ शांति,” wrote heavyweight author and prominent Indian politician Shashi Tharoor on X. His words came just moments after disembarking to attend the London edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), at a time when the world itself seems to be falling apart. The timing is more than just coincidental. Tharoor, fresh from his diplomatic outreach for the Indian government, will step into a festival that had long stood as a symbol of India's intellectual prowess. But beneath its shining panels and high-profile conversations hides an industry that is grappling with its own contradictions—an industry that has allowed power, privilege, and proximity to subvert the meritocracy that it once promised. JLF Founder & TeamworkArts MD Sanjoy K. Roy on X Today, as bombs have flattened Gaza , as Tehran reels under fresh ...