Pratap Bhanu Mehta

P B Mehta writes: An imaginary conversation between Donald and NarendraSubscriber Only

September 19,2025 07:06:35 AM

On tariffs, trade and leaders who make nations great

P B Mehta writes: Nepal, France, America — democracy seems overtaken once moreSubscriber Only

September 12,2025 06:55:47 AM

There is one recurring theme: Young people feel robbed of their future

P B Mehta writes: Can Indian capital step up when it is needed the most?Subscriber Only

August 29,2025 06:12:12 AM

For decades, businesses blamed the state for stifling potential. Now they reveal their innate inability to invest, build, or imagine the future

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Alasdair MacIntyre and the oppressions and fictions of modernitySubscriber Only

August 18,2025 07:05:27 AM

His masterpiece, 'After Virtue', published in 1981, anticipates many of the pathologies of modern political life.

P B Mehta writes: Giving in to the American state is an affront to India’s dignitySubscriber Only

August 05,2025 07:23:13 AM

Our pro-America lobby is loudly proclaiming that this model is working. Let us put it as modestly as we can, the jury is out on that one. But in any case, it is not clear what the rest of the world gains

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: If Gaza’s corpses can vanish from our conscience, what else are we becoming blind to?Subscriber Only

July 24,2025 06:28:25 AM

The horror in Gaza is so palpable that explanation or contextualisation often feels obscene. These are now tools of evasion, not illumination. The evasions and silences are linked to the broader civic failures of democracy

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Hyper nationalism prevents our foreign policy from asking tough questionsSubscriber Only

July 17,2025 06:20:56 AM

India is rightly concerned, and is somewhat shocked, that it lost the diplomatic high ground after Operation Sindoor

P B Mehta writes: In Bihar, now, prove your identitySubscriber Only

July 08,2025 07:20:53 AM

EC exercise in Bihar is an illustration of bureaucratic insensitivity, state overreach. It will erode trust in institutions

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: On Emergency and nationalism, a debate that blinds us to the futureSubscriber Only

July 01,2025 06:14:32 AM

In an era of such planetary-scale economic, technological and moral change, it is galling that we still want to remain stuck in the Seventies

Pratap Bhanu Mehta on conflicts across the world: Dangerous new thresholdsSubscriber Only

June 18,2025 07:05:39 AM

The impunity and nihilism of this moment are glaring. Amidst mass devastation and suffering, our moral faculties have been paralysed

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: What a free speech regime requiresSubscriber Only

June 13,2025 07:10:33 AM

Crisis of free speech is crisis of social mistrust. Each act of legal censorship is a vote of no confidence in our autonomous agency

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: SC order in Mahmudabad case casts a shadow on our rightsSubscriber Only

May 23,2025 06:51:58 AM

We are now in a constitutional regime in which even the Court’s philanthropic benevolence in granting bail lays the groundwork for further oppression.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Dealing with Pakistan, weak or strongSubscriber Only

May 12,2025 07:20:22 AM

Immediate onus is on Pakistan to demonstrate commitment to pacification of terrorism. There is no avoiding political process in Subcontinent

The Pahalgam abyssSubscriber Only

April 24,2025 16:29:57 PM

Perpetrators of the terror strike will be brought to justice. But a sense of foreboding will remain

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: How technology affects balance of power — and the lesson for IndiaSubscriber Only

April 19,2025 07:05:12 AM

If you want to be a technology leader, you should focus less on getting dominance in specific sectors and more on broad-based policies that allow for the diffusion of General Purpose Technologies

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: India must stand up to Donald Trump, the bullySubscriber Only

April 05,2025 07:05:41 AM

Recent US moves are brutal power play. Delhi must work on an international coalition to resist his imperiousness

Arun Shourie’s book on Savarkar, A New Icon, is a biting indictment of the Hindutva leader but fails to diagnose what makes his ideology so pervasive in modern IndiaSubscriber Only

April 04,2025 18:51:12 PM

Shourie does what he has so often done in the past: read original sources deeply and thoroughly to make a compelling case for the prosecution. Savarkar does not escape the full force of Shourie’s forensic wrath. He uses Savarkar’s own words to indict the man

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Under Trump, America teeters on the edge of authoritarianismSubscriber Only

March 18,2025 07:42:21 AM

His playbook has an Orwellian penchant for the inversion of language and policy and rides on normalising fear and compliance

Centre, state, party: The many conundrums of federalismSubscriber Only

March 14,2025 06:56:07 AM

The question of the dominance of parties threatens to obscure issues of federalism, including on delimitation

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: After Ukraine, imperialism is now the normSubscriber Only

March 05,2025 06:58:33 AM

The fact that the invasion of Ukraine happened at all was a profound failure, not of Ukraine as Trump suggests, but of the international community, which failed to uphold its security guarantees to a country that had willingly given up its nuclear arsenal.

Delhi’s contradictions took down Dikshit and Kejriwal. They will continue to haunt BJPSubscriber Only

February 20,2025 06:54:58 AM

Perhaps the starting point for thinking about governance is to not begin with a list of schemes, but the contradictions that Delhi must manage.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Trump wants to show the world who is bossSubscriber Only

February 05,2025 07:11:37 AM

This is not an era of transactionalism. It is the reinventing of American supremacy by weaponising the discontent with the current order

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: India’s delusion of relevanceSubscriber Only

February 01,2025 06:56:59 AM

Absolute numbers, framed by a propaganda machine, do not present an accurate picture of India's place in the world

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: India’s growth slowdown is a signal of declining confidence in governmentSubscriber Only

January 14,2025 07:04:33 AM

Mindless capital expenditure, schemes that fail to address systemic weaknesses, a lack of real reforms – investors may not say it openly out of fear or politeness, but privately, there is a crisis of faith in the state

PB Mehta writes: Five vibes — in politics, economics and creativity — that will shape 2025Subscriber Only

January 01,2025 06:50:53 AM

These are not predictions; it would be presumptuous to claim omniscience or even foresight. But here are five trends more in the realm of how the world might feel, rather than a prediction of actual events.