English

In a world which rewards champagne exiles and punishes resistance, Khawaja Asif chose authenticity over platitude. In doing so, he said what much of the global south quietly thinks: those who bathe in imperial perfume do not speak for the oppressed.

They didn’t posture or perform. They didn’t arrive with placards or pleadings. This trio threaded law, loss, and logic with the calibration of those who knew the weight of what they represent and the silence which usually follows them into Western rooms; this time, they are refusing to let that silence survive.

In a world drunk on the drumbeat of war, it takes uncommon nerve to whisper restraint. Yesterday, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari did just that—softly, firmly, devastatingly—from the podium of the United Nations.

Ishaq Dar, as Pakistan's foreign and deputy prime minister, resisted the urge, so common in crises, for maximalist posturing. He did not parade diplomatic telegrams for public approval. He did not pick Twitter fights. He kept Pakistan’s tone serious and sober.

In Narendra Modi, the RSS has found not just a leader but a messiah; one with the political cunning of an autocrat and the populist charisma of a televangelist. Under his watch, textbooks have been rewritten, history sanitised, minorities demonised, and a billion people convinced that all of this is progress.