Pratap Bhanu Mehta

P B Mehta writes on SC ruling on governors: An obligingly ambiguous piece of judgmentSubscriber Only

November 22,2025 07:05:44 AM

A backtracking Court writes a new doctrine of law as infinite elasticity

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: In Delhi and beyond, toxic air is sustained by toxic politicsSubscriber Only

November 14,2025 10:28:14 AM

And if that politics continues unchallenged, it will soon turn into something more dangerous still, a toxic distemper. Ignore it at your peril

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: From Zohran Mamdani, Nehru and the forgotten thread of freedomSubscriber Only

November 07,2025 06:06:25 AM

Mamdani’s invocation of Nehru recalled a formative episode in Nehru’s own life -- his first engagement with city government at the age of 34, when he was elected chairman of the Allahabad Municipal Board.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes on climate change: If Trump’s denialism is dangerous, Bill Gates’s complacency is more soSubscriber Only

November 01,2025 07:05:08 AM

Gates’s argument, Trump’s appropriation notwithstanding, is not denialist. Nor is it a call to ignore climate change. Yet his reframing of priorities is, in some ways, more insidious

Peacemaker: The forgotten U Thant gave the UN its moral voice, writes Pratap Bhanu MehtaSubscriber Only

October 25,2025 10:18:38 AM

Peacemaker, a new biography by Thant Myint-U, revives the story of how the forgotten Secretary-General U Thant gave the UN its rare moral authority.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: Does the collapse of sincerity mark the end of our capacity to make a common world?Subscriber Only

October 24,2025 06:21:30 AM

The problem with sincerity is that it is not merely an inner mental state; it must be a legible social practice, a form of life. Yet, something in the contemporary structure of the world renders sincerity unreadable. We simply cannot attribute it to anyone

PB Mehta writes | Lessons from a Nobel laureate: To become a knowledge power, India must address structural disconnects in its own knowledgeSubscriber Only

October 18,2025 06:51:09 AM

Work of Joel Mokyr forces us to confront a truth: Knowledge is not simply a tap that can be turned on by getting the incentives right -- one must also account for the capacity to respond to necessity

P B Mehta writes: The loneliness of Ram and GandhiSubscriber Only

October 02,2025 08:17:08 AM

Both reached the same uncomfortable truth — the moral exemplar often stands outside the logic of power

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