There are still four months
As we grow older, there is a strange feeling that time begins to move faster. The years that once seemed long now appear to pass almost unnoticed. It feels as…
A bridge to Jorhat
Jorhat is in Assam, but for Mokokchung, the city has long been much more than a place across the state boundary. Located about 100 kilometres from the Mokokchung district headquarters,…
The contagion of corruption
Corruption is often spoken of as an individual wrongdoing. A public official takes a bribe, a contractor manipulates a tender, or a citizen pays money to get something done. But…
Nagaland needs more legal action in the public interest
In Nagaland, when an issue of public concern arises, the familiar response is often immediate and predictable: a press statement is issued, a condemnation follows, a deadline is announced and,…
What do we really mean by development?
When we speak of development, we often think in terms of what we can see: roads, bridges, buildings, stadiums, drains and other infrastructure. The larger the project, the bigger the…
The road to better roads must begin with accountability
Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari’s proposal to use GST records to track layers of subcontracting in highway projects and limit the extent of outsourcing is a welcome…
From tribes to nation states, and what comes next
Human political history is, in many ways, the history of people learning to organise themselves at ever larger scales. Early human communities were small bands of hunter-gatherers, bound by kinship…
We cannot wish away the hills
The monsoon has a way of reminding us how closely our lives are tied to the landscape around us. For a hill town like Mokokchung, heavy rain is not merely…
Politics is too serious to be left to politicians
Charles de Gaulle, the French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II, famously observed that “Politics is too serious a matter to be left…
The rise and fall of societies
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create hard times.” The popular saying, attributed to G Michael Hopf, is…