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 …

Ancient Indian texts on governance had always a detailed section on the ethics which enjoined rulers to establish and perpetuate a value-based relation with their subjects. Rulers were clearly directed to be accountable and responsive to those they ruled. Such injunctions on their conduct in public life also succeeded in …

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 …

Some time in the middle of June 1950, when the sacred relics of Buddha’s two chief disciples Moggallana and Sariputta had already travelled all over Myanmar for about two months, the Cultural Studies Group of the Rangoon Ramakrishna Mission Society convened an international conference on India’s cultural and civilisational linkages …

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 …

It has been our national misfortune in academic terms that those thinkers and scholars who have written and spoken of the achievements of Indian civilisations in positive terms are the ones who’ve faced marginalisation or segregation—they have been victims of a well-calculated academic apartheid. Since these interpreters essentially challenged the …

‘Sardar Patel’s actions must continue to inspire those who have worked for change today and those who aspire to alter the strangling status quo in our national life,’ says Dr Anirban Ganguly. A pensive Dr Rajendra Prasad, writing a little over a decade after India’s Independence, noted with great sadness how …

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 …

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s offer of central assistance in arresting the downward slide in West Bengal and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s ongoing trip to the state and his asking for Mamata’s cooperation in handling the situation and in dissolving the anti-national and inter-country network of jihad that has now …

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 …

Mahatma Gandhi’s restructuring of the Congress was nothing short of a radical overhaul. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ‘Swachh Bharat” movement, it was as though the Mahatma, in whose name mere tokenism has been practiced for the last six decades, was at last beginning to be adopted by …

The present initiative to bring about a larger awareness and determination to achieve national cleanliness is a welcome return to our values and traditions A high state of order, sublimity and well-functioning local institution has usually been expressive of an advance civilisational stage. To a number of observers, India appeared …

One of the most articulate voices of Eastern education philosophy, Kireet Joshi was futuristic yet traditional With the passing away of Kireet Joshi, pre-eminent education philosopher and administrator, the curtains have been drawn on a creative and vibrant era of Indian education which had derived direct inspiration from the National …