Colonel's Random Thoughts

Indian Democracy Needs More Ritikas! Because democracy is not protected merely by casting a vote. It is protected by the institutions that safeguard that vote, by journalists who scrutinise those institutions, and by citizens who refuse to look away when legitimate questions arise. An Election Commission must be trusted not because it demands trust, but because its actions can withstand scrutiny. A government must be accountable not because it claims to be, but because democratic institutions and a free press can question it without fear. That is why investigative journalism matters. The ballot gives citizens power. Journalism helps ensure that power is not quietly taken away from them. And when questions arise about the integrity of the electoral process, the answer cannot be silence, political defensiveness or partisan accusation. The answer must be evidence, transparency, independent scrutiny and accountability. That is the republic's insurance poli...

Before the Sun Rises Without Us One morning, you will wake up for the last time.  You will not know it is the last. You will make your coffee, reach for your phone, get dressed and begin another ordinary day. You may drive to work, answer calls, sit at your usual place at the dining table, laugh with your family, kiss your children, watch a movie and make plans for next week.  Nothing will announce that this is a moment you should remember forever. That is the strange condition of being human: we are given no calendar for the moments that matter most.  We do not know the date we will arrive in this world, nor the hour we will leave it. Between those two unknown points lies an astonishing interval called a lifetime. It may be twenty years. Forty. Sixty. Eighty. Perhaps a hundred.  We simply do not know.  Yet we live as though tomorrow has signed a contract with us.  We make plans. We postpone things. We tell ourselves there will be time later. La...