Open Minds 2025: Soft Power

Editor’s Note

Open Minds 2025: Public Square

Shubhanshu Shukla | V Narayanan | Sunita Williams | Mukesh Ambani | Gautam Adani | Nikhil Kamath | Shashi Tharoor | Ram Madhav | Pratap Bhanu Mehta | Swapan Dasgupta | Anand Ranganathan | Aravind Srinivas | Vivek Raghavan and Pratyush Kumar | Vinod Dham | Balaraman Ravindran | Ashok Elluswamy | Jay Shah | Uday Shankar | William Dalrymple | Amitav Ghosh | Vikram Sampath | Abhijit Banerjee

Keeping the Faith

A direct hit can penetrate even a safe room. For years, I was convinced that my safe room was truly safe. But over the past few days, I have started to wonder, am I really protected? I’m beginning to question the quality of the safe room itself

The Revolution’s Last Stand

The Iranian regime is being thinned out. Whoever is in power in Tehran at the end of this conflict is likely to be radically different. It could be a new version of the same regime. It could be a descent into Syria-like chaos. And the regime may end with a whimper, not a bang, and it may be replaced with something equally unpleasant or worse

War On Iran

Can the Islamic republic survive as Israel vows to destroy its nuclear facilities?

Deny and Be Damned

In Iran it’s an exhausted revolution’s last struggle

The Dreamliner That Didn’t Climb

The crash of AI171 exposes the narrow margin between flight and failure and the unforgiving nature of take-off

The Tragedy of Flight AI171

India in mourning after the Air India flight from Ahmedabad to London crashes moments after take-off, raising questions about aviation safety. Lone survivor among 242 aboard, many students of BJ Medical College feared killed as the plane on fire crashes into their dining hall

The Cultural Traveller

The world is a series of connections available to those who go looking for it. In doing so, they discover something of themselves