By not tossing Leela Samson, the Government of India has, in fact, displayed a spirit of fair-play. And she, by accusing it of interfering and obstructing her work, has only taken recourse to falsehood in order to perpetuate a hollow impression of victimhood The founding ideal of the Kalakshetra, was …

It would be interesting to extrapolate some features of a civilisational state into the Indian context and juxtapose them against some present efforts’ The past six months have been positive for India, especially for her quest to rediscover her contours — physical, ideational and spiritual — as a civilisational state. …

Louise Burke noted that Vivekananda wanted to spread the Master’s message not only to Europe and Asia but also to South Africa, where an Indian community lived In her path-breaking multi-volume study, Swami Vivekananda in the West — New Discoveries, one of the few encyclopaedic works on Swami Vivekananda’s actions in …

The setting was, ‘balmy Goa’ but the agenda on the platter was an intense and fascinating mind brew. In witnessing it, I remembered the civilisational past of India as a knowledge society that evolved frameworks, charted new courses through continuous debate, dialogue The afternoon before I left for Goa to …

Present efforts that are focussed on good governance, are moves towards effectuating Dharma-based polity. This was also found during our civilisational times In a recent discussion on the topic of ‘good governance’, a leading speaker remarked that efficient Government alone did not suffice to make ‘good governance’. While this may perhaps …

Leading minds in Myanmar seem to acknowledge the way India has begun to look at her neighbours. They also expressed eagerness to be part of that change A fortnight back, I visited Myanmar as part of a delegation to attend a dialogue hosted by a group of think tanks comprising …

There is reluctance, even hostility, among those who consider themselves to be Nehru’s heirs, to evaluate the country’s first Prime Minister dispassionately It was unfortunate, but perhaps not all that unexpected, to see Jawaharlal Nehru’s self-proclaimed political heirs display a very boorish non-Nehruvian spirit on the occasion of the launch …

One defining characteristic of Indian civilisation has been its capacity to reach out to the rest of the world and develop multi-dimensional linkages In terms of civilisational continuity, India is perhaps the only civilisation that has not only had continuity up to the present, but was also one that had …

India’s struggle for independence had been witness to some of the most interesting thoughts on education being articulated and experimented with, vigorously Perhaps no other country’s struggle for independence saw such a robust and rich parallel education movement as did India’s from the 1890s to the late 1930s. Throughout this …

It’s a cause for concern when Tagore’s institution, once a window for global minds to read India’s timeless civilisational message, loiters from its founding ideals In the last week of March 1936, an ailing Rabindranath Tagore, having toured the “big towns” of North India with his dance troupe performing the …