India won the T20WC yesterday becoming the first team to
Win it thrice
Win it at home
Win it back to back
Won 3 ICC trophies back to back to back
I always knew this day was coming.
India is a cricket mad country of 1.4 billion+. That means India should have dominated all of cricket. Issue was India was a dirt poor country with most of the population barely surviving.
After the economic reforms, as India kept getting richer bit by bit, the team also kept improving bit by bit.
So I always knew this inflection point would come eventually.
But it is still surreal to watch it live.
Countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, SL, WI etc are no longer able to compete against India.
SENA maybe can give competition for a decade due to being rich countries.
But in 10-15 year’s time India will basically be what USA is to basketball.
Since what seems like World War 3 broke out a week ago, the fact that Holi was this past Wednesday (March 4) completely slipped my mind. I’m surprised that no one else on BP mentioned it either.
I just want to briefly share this recording of Gauhar Jaan singing “Mere Huzraat ne Madeene mein manayi Holi” (My Prophet played Holi in Medina). This is an example of the syncretic culture of Hindustani music. A Muslim artist (born Armenian Christian) singing a composition that references the Prophet of God celebrating a Hindu festival. This is the syncretic culture that has sadly been lost on both sides of the Radcliffe Line.
There is an excellent book on Gauhar Jaan titled My Name is Gauhar Jaan! (2010) by Vikram Sampath.
After the jump, there is another beautiful composition sung by Venkatesh Kumar. This is a thumri in Raga Mishra Kafi entitled “Aaj Khelo Shyam Sang Hori” (Let’s Play Holi with Shayam (Krishna) today” Continue reading Belated Holi 2026 Thread
This is a rebuttal to X.T.M’s recent post on “civilization states” . The longer essay can be read here
In this context, Shashi Tharoor’s essay “Civilization States Are Profoundly Illiberal” is well-worth reading in full. Tharoor is a centrist Indian and can be said to articulate the Congress Party’s position on this topic.
Civilizational State vs. Nation-State
Google defines “Civilizational state” as one that “defines itself and its identity based on a unique and encompassing civilization, rather than solely on shared ethnicity, language or governance”. Google goes on to note that “ the differing worldviews and values associated with civilizational states could potentially lead to tensions and conflicts with other nations or blocs”. In India’s case, defining itself as a “civilizational state” certainly leads to tensions with Pakistan (and perhaps to a growing extent with Bangladesh).
I believe that this “civilizational state” conception is a belief of the Hindu Right. I agree with the Indian left that the Republic of India is a nation-state that was created on August 15, 1947–exactly at the same moment that Pakistan was created. British India was not a nation-state but a colony. Upon decolonization, parts of the colony went their own way. Continue reading On “Civilization States” vs. Nation-States
Kabir says calling India, that is Bharat, a civilisational state is a “right-wing position.” We disagree; and the disagreement isn’t political, it’s archaeological.
Look at what Mohenjo-daro actually gives us: the Pashupati Seal; three-faced, ithyphallic, seated in yogic posture, surrounded by elephant, tiger, buffalo, rhinoceros. Proto-Shiva. The Mother Goddess figurines. Linga and yoni stones. Pipal veneration. The sacred bull. Every single religious thread runs forward into the living Hindu tradition. Continue reading On Civilisational States and Who Gets to Claim the Indus
Please put all the latest news here. We would like to preface that we mourn ALL lives lost in this unnecessary conflict whether they are civilian (Iranian school girls, Israeli families, Iranian hospital patients) or military (American soldiers, Iranian sailors).
We have been running this blog long enough to know that readership numbers are a vanity metric, until they aren’t. February held steady at 41,000 views, which we are quietly proud of. But what genuinely surprised us, and we mean genuinely, not in the performative way, is that Pakistan now constitutes 28% of our readership.
A thousand visits a day, give or take a bit more. The old 1% rule says one in a hundred will actually say something; which means for every BB, RNJ, Kabir or Sbarr in the comments, there are ninety-nine people reading in silence and agreeing with “either camp”. We find that thought rather beautiful.
Prior to February, Pakistan had never cracked the top five. Now it’s sitting at number one.
One of the interesting things about the Asian countries as they got rich was that they followed a pattern.
0.65-0.75 HDI – Building public infrastructure (metros/bullet trains etc), systems.
0.75-0.85 HDI – Companies becoming global players. Japanese companies in the 80s. Korean in the late 90s-early 2000s. Chinese from the mid 2010s onward.
0.85 HDI+ – Pop culture becomes mainstream. Soft power. Anime/video games in the 90s for Japan. Hallyu in the 2000s for Korea. Chinese video games and C-dramas are also picking up pace now internationally (Will be a deluge by the early 2030s).
India is currently in the first phase (alongside Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines etc).
China is in the second (alongside Malaysia, Thailand).
Japan, South Korea in the third (alongside Taiwan, Hong Kong etc).
Judging by current timelines India enters phase 2 around 2030 and phase 3 around 2050.
But it doesn’t have to be exact and some green shoots can happen before.
Rajamouli’s RRR was very well received globally (Japan as well as the west) and audiences loved the over the top earnest action in a time of crossover saturated mainstream Hollywood movies. It even won an Oscar.
His next project is the one of the most expensive Indian films ever and is getting a lot of traction from international media as well as movie tech companies(Dolby, IMAX).
Here is the official IMAX channel launching the trailer.
Interview with Collider.
The movie seems to have a very interesting premise with a Indiana Jones style globe trotting adventure with time travel shenanigans. I assume judging from the trailer the adventure will take them through the Ramayana as well.
Can be a game changer for Indian cinema and what takes India to the next level. India is already the third biggest box office in the world (behind USA+Canada and China) and the only one who will be capable beside these two to make big budget VFX-heavy epics.
A lot of VFX work is already done in India so this will hold India in good stead in the future (DNEG which does VFX for lots of Hollywood movies like Dune etc is an Indian owned company and is handling the Ramayana movie as well which is another movie getting a big international push).
On the 4th of March 2026, a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. At least 87 sailors were killed. Over a hundred remain missing. Pete Hegseth called it “quiet death” from the Pentagon podium; bragging it was the first torpedo kill since World War II.
MILAN at Vyzag
The IRIS Dena had just left Visakhapatnam. It had been India’s guest. Formally invited to MILAN 2026, the International Fleet Review hosted by the Indian Navy, attended by 86 ships from 74 nations. The Eastern Naval Command had tweeted a welcome photograph two weeks earlier: “reflecting long-standing cultural links between the two nations.”
Two weeks later, that ship is on the ocean floor. And from New Delhi, silence. Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said it plainly: Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy, was struck in international waters without warning. That line will not be forgotten in Tehran. It should not be forgotten in New Delhi either; because it is the most precise summary available of what Modi’s diplomatic positioning has actually cost India.
When guests are murdered
Say what you want about Pakistan’s post-colonial elite; and there is plenty to say. But since Pahalgam they have been reading the room better than New Delhi has. Not because Islamabad became richer or more competent. Neither of those things happened. What happened is simpler: when the bombs fell on Iran, Pakistan said nothing loud, and that silence was itself a signal. Across the Muslim world that signal was heard. Loyalty travels farther than power. Whether that loyalty is strategic or genuine is a separate question. The effect is the same.
