Saturday, Jul 24, 2021 | Last Update : 07:25 AM IST

Mohan Guruswamy

A 14c copy of Magna Carta in the MertonCollege library. (Twitter)

Mohan Guruswamy | Liberty and rights for all: Myth of the Magna Carta

Magna Carta came out of an intra-elite struggle between 40 barons and their King

13 Jul 2021 9:11 AM

The Union Cabinet can have up to 81 members, but currently there are only 53 (with 28 vacancies). (ANI file photo)

Mohan Guruswamy | Cabinet rejig: PM needs to look for better talent

If PM Modi wants to survive politically and leave a well- regarded legacy, the surest way would be to make his government more effective

06 Jul 2021 7:07 AM

Right now, there is a physical difference between the PM’s House and the PM’s Office. By coalescing these together, we will be creating a White House or even a Kremlin, with executive power concentrated in one structure. (Twitter)

Mohan Guruswamy | Modi’s new architecture for govt may hurt India

What should cause us concern is the centrality of the Prime Minister’s residence and office to this new layout

24 Jun 2021 7:03 AM

Yoga is a non-sectarian physical and mental health-oriented set of exercises. (DC image)

Mohan Guruswamy | India’s culture & how it evolved… Yoga is exercise, it’s not Hinduism

If yoga is Hindu, then karate is Buddhist, kung fu is Confucian and taekwondo also Buddhist

18 Jun 2021 7:14 AM

Mohan Guruswamy | It’s not for India to clean up the Afghanistan mess

If that Afghan situation were to boil over it will spill out mostly into Pakistan, a country quite dedicated to our destruction

08 Jun 2021 7:15 AM

According to the World Health Organisation, there are approximately 120 million smokers in India, and India is the home of 12 per cent of the world’s smokers. (Representational image: AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | Tobacco India’s top health crisis: Act now, or just go up in smoke!

It is not that the incidence of smoking is low in India if we take into consideration the widespread bidi habit

31 May 2021 7:39 AM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on January 28 this year, had declared India as one of the countries that had successfully controlled the coronavirus. (Photo: AP)

Mohan Guruswamy | Hubris, narcissim and moment of ‘hamartia’

The sin of hubris has been a continuing theme that has captured the imagination of historians, philosophers and theologians alike

25 May 2021 9:24 PM

Israeli forces' flares light up the sky in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 16, 2021. (Photo: AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | Israel’s brutality in Gaza has dented heroic image

The founding of the State of Israel held out the promise of a new nation

17 May 2021 8:16 AM

Mohan Guruswamy | Check India’s corruption, or insurgencies will go up

A just and relatively honest society requires a system that inflicts swift and commensurate retribution on transgressors

11 May 2021 12:00 AM

Prime Minister Modi’s inability to defend India against the second Covid-19 wave, and his inability to cajole the Chinese from withdrawing from areas they occupied in Ladakh now make him an easy target. (Photo: AP)

Mohan Guruswamy | Bengal’s thinking is clear: Will rest of India follow?

The Gujarat model has been long exposed as bogus. There is light seen at the end of the tunnel

04 May 2021 12:00 AM

Mohan Guruswamy | The God business is good business all across India

Religion is now, not just increasingly a part of our politics, but also, and even more so, of our economics

24 Apr 2021 12:00 AM

Mohan Guruswamy | ‘Force majeure’ can’t be fig leaf for naked greed

It will be interesting to know if the government has been told by Reliance or Airtel of their inability to pay the telecom spectrum dues?

09 Apr 2021 4:13 AM

Geography and recent history have made the India-China relationship a difficult one, and one in which the United States will find ample space and opportunity to inveigle itself to its advantage. (Representational image: AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | The challenges of living next to Chinese dragon

It would thus seem India and China are destined to live out the foreseeable future as rivals, if not adversaries

23 Mar 2021 7:25 AM

India’s immediate neighbours, for their own reasons, still largely see India’s conduct towards them as the continuation of the British legacy. (Representational image : AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | Stop meddle & muddle: Rework regional policy

Our diplomats have tended to be overbearing with the smaller non-hostile neighbours, often treating them like errant schoolboys

09 Mar 2021 11:17 AM

India’s diplomatic and military establishment seems gripped by grandiose visions of an India sitting on global high tables like the UN Security Council. (Representational image : AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | India must learn from Chanakya, not a Shah!

India’s pursuit of iron-clad national security and global status ambitions makes it annually import as much as $20 billion of weapons

04 Mar 2021 7:10 AM

While it can be argued that a Security Council of a smaller number of countries is desirable to make the UN effective, it must also reflect world realities and be more representative of its diversity. (Photo: AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | Does India want to be a Tier-2 UNSC member?

India has asked for a greater and comprehensive reform in the responses, processes and character of the UN

09 Feb 2021 4:42 AM

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament, in New Delhi, Wednesday, February 03, 2021. (PTI /Manvender Vashist)

Mohan Guruswamy | No new taxes? Budget’s Mahabharata lessons

Even in a much smaller economy like India, in the ultimate analysis it’s the state of the economy that determines political longevity

04 Feb 2021 7:20 AM

The Delhi Gymkhana Club. Photo: delhigymkhana.org.in

Mohan Guruswamy | Elite clubs bastions of hereditary entitlement

After the white man departed, these clubs turned into a preserve of the new Indian elite -- many called them the 'brown sahibs'

01 Feb 2021 7:17 AM

US President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris (L) signs a a 'Made in America' Executive Order, to increase the amount of federal spending that goes to American companies in the South Court Auditorium at the White House on January 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. (JIM Watson / AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | Biden’s real challenge is to fix America’s finances

The American crisis began unfolding when Richard Nixon disengaged the US dollar from the gold standard

27 Jan 2021 7:23 AM

Given its abject failures on the economic front, the BJP/RSS regime in New Delhi is now pushing India towards a Hindutva nationhood, by seeking to victimise a minority for the perceived wrongs and slights of the past. (Representative Photo:AFP)

Mohan Guruswamy | An important lesson from India’s history for PM Modi

An intolerant religion can never be the basis of nationhood and national unity in India

17 Jan 2021 4:29 AM

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Karan Thapar