Koh-i-Noor Diamond: The Mountain of Light and the Throne of Lahore
A Stone Older Than Any Modern Border The Koh-i-Noor is usually described as an Indian diamond, and the description misleads. When the stone was mined, probably at Kollur in the Deccan, no state called India existed. There was no Indian passport, flag, constitution or citizenship. There was a vast subcontinent of competing kingdoms, sultanates…
A Turning Point: The Gulf Reorders Itself, and Pakistan Moves to the Centre
For eighty years, the security of the Middle East ran through Washington. Gulf monarchies bought American arms and hosted American bases, and in return they assumed the guarantee would hold when it counted. Today that assumption is being retired. What is taking its place is a regional order built by the region’s own powers,…
Architects of an Illusion: Israel and the Mirage of “The New Middle East”
For decades, Israeli geopolitical strategy aimed to transform Tel Aviv into the non-negotiable economic, technological and security core of a restructured Middle East. By leapfrogging the Palestinian question through economic diplomacy, transnational infrastructure corridors and bilateral normalisation accords, Israeli policymakers sought to reorder the region’s geoeconomic architecture. However, the real-world trajectories of regional integration…
Student Protests: Europe’s Young Generation Losing Confidence In The Future
In five weeks, a revolt that began with teenagers dragging rubbish bins across school gates in a Paris suburb has become a continental movement. Pupils are blockading lycées in France, pitching tents in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and Athens’ Syntagma Square, throwing bricks at a ministry in Tirana and occupying schools in Turin. The…
The Last Open Pulpit: Kashmir’s Friday Sermon Row and the Kashmiri Muslim Fight Over Preserving the Right to Exist
For many Kashmiri Muslims, Friday is the one hour of the week that still belongs to them. The mosque fills, the imam stands, and a community that has had little say over its own affairs hears its fears and its faith spoken aloud by someone it trusts. When the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board…
Achilles Shield: Greece Buys Into Israel’s War Economy, and Türkiye Is Watching
On 31 August 2026, officials from Israel and Greece signed an air-defence agreement in Israel that Israel’s ministry called the largest defence export deal in the history of the two countries’ relations. Israel’s Ministry of Defence director general, Amir Baram, and his Greek counterpart, Ioannis Bouras, put their names to a government-to-government contract worth…
Beijing’s Non-Recognition of the Union Territory of Ladakh: India–China Cartographic Contestation Deepens
China says it has never recognised the Union Territory of Ladakh and has called India’s decision to standardise 28 place names there “illegal and invalid”. Beijing’s foreign ministry responded on 13 October, eleven days after India’s Ministry of Home Affairs placed the names on official Survey of India maps. India’s Standardisation of 28 Place…
Mehrgarh: The Cradle Before the Cities
An Unlikely Discovery on the Kachi Plain In 1974, a French archaeological team led by Jean-François Jarrige and Catherine Jarrige began excavating a site at the foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, Pakistan. They could scarcely have known they were uncovering one of the most important prehistoric sites in South Asia. The Mehrgarh…
India’s SIR Voter Purge Explained: 130 Million Removed, Muslims Hit Hardest
India’s biggest electoral-roll overhaul is now a national political crisis. Protesters have taken to the streets, the Supreme Court has demanded answers, and millions of people removed from the rolls are waiting to learn whether they can get back on them. The scale of the purge The exercise is called the Special Intensive Revision…
Moscow Format on Afghanistan: Russia Praises the Taliban While Terrorism Concerns Go Unanswered
The eighth Moscow Format meeting on Afghanistan was meant to showcase regional coordination. Instead it exposed how divided Afghanistan’s neighbours are on the Taliban and on terrorism. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks drew as much attention for what he left out as for what he said. The summit ended without a joint…
