Ram Madhav

At the root of today’s crisis, an intellectual void

Ram Madhav, July 30, 2020

With rising authoritarianism and a crisis of democracy, the world needs new ideas. Can India show the way?  Weak minds discuss people; average minds discuss events; strong minds discuss ideas,” said Greek philosopher Socrates. People and events dominate public discourse because they matter to the bread and butter issues of the people. But then, as […]

The Room Where it Happened – A White House Memoir

Ram Madhav, July 24, 2020

In the last four years, the Donald Trump administration in America has witnessed abrupt end of the careers of many high ranking officials. They either quit their coveted posts in the middle of their tenure, or dismissed uncermoneously, eitherway mostly under controversial circumstances. There were dozens of them, but some names stand out – like […]

Soft Power Struggles

Ram Madhav, July 23, 2020

Statues, Church, Mosque and a Temple – How underlying cultural tensions are leading to liberal dilemmas and geo-political conflicts. Joseph Nye, the American liberal political scientist, proposed his soft power theory in the 1980s believing that culture would be a non-coercive power to influence nations. Coming ten years after him, Samuel Huntington, a conservative political […]

As Chinese ambition expands, Delhi must turn towards PM Modi’s principle of ‘together we grow’

Ram Madhav, July 16, 2020

Proactive diplomacy together with greater attention to soft developmental needs of the neighbours like connectivity, education, finance and healthcare is the need of the hour for India’s foreign policy mandarins. There is a possibility of the immediate neighbours being inimical, while the neighbour of the neighbour, in the second circle, could be a friend. (File) […]

Religions and Society in China

Ram Madhav, July 9, 2020

Just completed this 9-week short-lecture course being offered by the National University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. It is an easy and interesting course for those who want to understand the religious history of China and how the atheist China government and the CCP deal with religion in contemporary China. One thing that strikes […]

Challenges to Global Governance

Ram Madhav, July 7, 2020

The challenge to global governance comes today from the decay of the very institutions created for that purpose some 75 years ago. This is the 75th year of the creation of the United Nations Organisation or UNO. The UN was the brainchild of American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who first shared the idea with Winston […]

The Dalai Lama at 85

Ram Madhav, July 5, 2020

The many hurdles that His Holiness overcame to make India his home The tiny village of Shaoshan in the Hunan province of China is an important centrepiece of ‘Red Tourism’.Busloads of people flock to this birthplace of Mao Zedong to pay their respects to the ‘Great Helmsman’, whose 36-metrehigh statue adorns the village square. There […]

The People vs Democracy

Ram Madhav, June 30, 2020

Yascha Mounk’s book The People vs. Democracy is informative, but unconvincing. His arguments that present day democracies are posing a danger to the freedoms of the people sound hollow when examined carefully. Yascha’s arguments don’t sound logical also for the reason that he doesn’t hide his antipathy for nationalism and of course his dislike, bordering […]