A version of this essay has been published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/opinion-what-makes-trump-a-better-candidate-for-india-and-world-13831800.html An AI-generated (courtesy notebookLM.google.com) podcast based on this essay is here: In all humility, I accept that my endorsement of Donald Trump for the office of POTUS doesn’t make a difference, but I think it’s important for me to articulate why I think Trump is the better choice for all concerned.  On the one hand,...

The potential consequences of a Trump presidency for India span multiple dimensions, including military, economic, trade, cultural, financial, and social aspects. Here’s an overview of these impacts: Military and Geopolitical Implications - Defense Ties: Under Trump, India may continue to strengthen its defense partnerships with the U.S., particularly in countering China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region. - Transactional Foreign Policy: Trump's approach is likely to be more...

* POTUS election: Trump has momentum, but this election looks increasingly like it’s going to be interfered with by the Democratic machine. Harris is likely to “win”; the DeepState will return with renewed vigor, and its embrace of thugs like Pannun, understandable only if you believe they have every intent to sabotage India, will resume. * The BRICS+ shindig sends a signal to the US and the collective West that dedollarization may be upon us sooner than expected; but India should not jump...

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-the-implications-of-a-kamala-harris-presidency-for-india-13828576.html Here’s an AI-generated podcast based on this essay (courtesy Google’s NotebookLM): always entertaining and appealing. Full disclosure: Parts of this essay were written by AI, and edited. The entire sorry spat with the Canadians, the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats and a virtual breakdown of ties leads to a good...

The podcast above was made by the Google Gemini AI via notebookLM. A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-narrative-building-of-west-and-the-threat-of-regime-change-13827231.html While we can all laugh at the absurdities mouthed by Justin Trudeau in his crusade against India and Hindus, there are meta-questions that really beg for an answer: what the heck is going on? Who is behind all this? Why now? What other precedents do...

I wrote a note in January regarding BKS (which I will not post because of some sensitive information), and here I share a summary, created by Google Gemini NotebookLM. Summary Rajeev Srinivasan argues that India can use technology to advance its traditional knowledge systems (BKS). He proposes developing a "BharatLLM" – a large language model trained on Indian texts – to preserve Bharatiya concepts and create a "Splinternet" of domain-specific text repositories. This would allow for machine...

First, in 2003, exhorting India to be a hard state. i wrote this 20 years ago about why India needs to be #hardstate. coercion, carrots, covert action and containment: the principles remain relevant even though the dramatis personae are different. https://www.rediff.com/news/2003/feb/21rajeev.htm Second, in 2008, the fear that India would be a failed state. I wrote this just after the invasion of Mumbai on 26/11/2008....

Dr Puri is a Telegram enthusiast (and a tech maven in general, despite his day job as a radiation oncologist), so he is particularly concerned about the full-court press against the app recently: its founder was arrested in France, its antecedents were questioned, its business model (which includes its own cryptocurrency, and also a million paying subscribers) was mocked, and there was a suggestion that it was nurturing crooks, criminals, child pornographers, human traffickers, etc. There...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com Note: Free subscribers can preview this podcast by clicking above. It is truncated; the full podcast is for paid subscribers. Please upgrade to a paid subscription if you can because that will help pay my bills. A good bit of my writing/podcasts will continue to be free, but some podcasts especially with guests will be only for paid subscribers. This is…

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The Dr B S Harishankar Memorial Lecture, Bharatiya Vichara Kendram, Trivandrum, 27th August 2024. A Malayalam version of this has been published by Janmabhumi newspaper at https://janmabhumi.in/2024/09/01/3258051/varadyam/geo-political-implications-for-bangladesh/ A brand-new genAI-generated podcast with two different anchors (it’s really quite good, give it a listen!) courtesy Google NotebookLM added. Let me tell you, I liked it. Your comments on this, below? It was startling to hear from...

A version of this essay has been published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/climate-tragedy-of-wayanad-and-the-vulnerability-of-western-ghats-13808331.html Here’s a new AI-generated podcast courtesy of Google NotebookLM that summarizes this essay. After days of intense coverage of the landslides in Wayanad, the news cycle has moved on to other calamities. But the problems remain, and things cannot be left to benign neglect as is usually the case. For example there was a...

A version of this essay was published by news18.com at https://www.news18.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-beyond-lenient-laws-what-will-it-take-to-protect-indias-women-9023844.html After this fortnight, it is not hard to see why some are demanding speedy punishment, including automatic death sentences for severe crimes against women. To put it bluntly, the Indian State is letting rapists and murderers get away with their crimes against both grown women, and especially tragically, against little...

It is fairly obvious that the dominant, i.e. Western mechanism for generating new knowledge is rather different from the traditional Indian mechanism, and this shows up in all sorts of ways. One is that Indian epistemology seems to be empirical and practical, based on observation; whereas the Western tradition seems to prefer grand theories that must then be proved by observation. Another difference is the Western idea that Intellectual Property is a private right that the State confers on an...

A version of this essay was published by rediff.com at https://www.rediff.com/news/column/rajeev-srinivasan-hamas-war-is-an-immediate-setback-to-india/20231017.htm It can be argued on several grounds that the 2023 Israel-Hamas war is a point of inflection indicating the general eclipse of the West, and in fact I have done so in an essay. What is unclear is how the end of this era will play out in the medium term and the long term.  The best analogy I can think of is the assassination of...

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-does-the-war-in-israel-mark-the-end-of-pax-occidentalis-13235762.html The attack by Hamas on Israel may well be remembered in future as marking the very moment the decline of the West became an indubitable fact. Thus October 7th, 2023 may be a point of inflection in geo-politics and geo-economics, although it is true that the economic center of gravity of the world has been moving...

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-g20-and-its-fallout-india-the-swing-state-imec-and-trudeaus-tantrums-13162212.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social A fortnight after the end of the G20 Summit in New Delhi, it’s worth revisiting what really materialized, and what India can expect out of all the hard work that went into it. First, the positives. The flawless execution of the Summit is something the Indian...

On the one hand, there is massive propaganda from the west, ably supported by native sepoys, that India is on the verge of some genocide of Muslims.  On the other hand, last month, the Speaker of the Kerala Assembly, a Muslim, said that Lord Ganesh was “a myth”. Instead of censuring him for hurting the sentiments of Hindus, the ruling communists of Kerala supported him. This month, Udayanidhi Stalin, a minister, who is also the son of the DMK Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M K Stalin, said...

* It’s illegal. There is a constitutional right to worship. Even more so there is a right to equality to all citizens.  * It’s immoral and criminal. To call for genocide. This is not free speech. This is hate speech * This is pure propaganda * Demonizing the enemy has a long history * Spaniards called aztecs cannibals and vice versa, but white people got to write the history books * Yellow peril * Nazis called jews vermin * Hutus in rwanda called tutsis cockroaches, and then genocide them * N...

A version of this essay was published by news18.com at https://www.news18.com/opinion/opinion-what-a-difference-ten-years-make-india-since-2014-8559632.html I wrote ten years ago on Rediff.com (‘The great Indian rope trick and other illusions of progress’ https://www.rediff.com/news/column/the-great-indian-rope-trick-and-other-illusions-of-progress/20130716.htm) about how the average Indian is satisfied with illusion, never mind real progress. That made India a Potemkin State, where form is...

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A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-paris-is-burning-why-12837712.html I had the disconcerting experience of being on the ground in Paris while the current riots raged. Oddly enough, on my previous visit, in April 2019, I arrived the night the Notre Dame cathedral caught fire, and then was in town during the Yellow Vest riots against fuel taxes. In both cases, my plans were affected: in the current case I stirred out of my...

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-permanent-interests-not-permanent-friends-drive-foreign-policy-12814872.html The optics for PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US were good. There was a surprisingly positive reception to his speech to the joint houses of the US Parliament (known as the US Congress, not to be confused with the Indian political party with its congenital allergy to Modi). I read that the PM gave a bravura...