Watch: Decoding Trump: Disintegrating World Order
We should not be unduly nostalgic about the old world order, but the disintegration of the world order is significant because the attack has come from within, T.S. Tirumurti, former Permanent Representative of India to the UN, said on Friday (May 9, 2025).
He was speaking at a panel with Srinath Raghavan, Professor, Ashoka University, on 'Decoding Trump - Disintegrating World Order', moderated by Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
Read more: Disintegration of world order is significant because the attack has come from within: Tirumurti
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NDTV
an hour ago
- NDTV
What Shashi Tharoor Said On Pakistan At United Nations Anti-Terror Panels
Washington: India is not friendless in the UN Security Council and Pakistan chairing its Taliban Sanctions Committee and being named vice-chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee is a designation without much practical consequence, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has said. Tharoor is leading a multi-party Parliamentary delegation to the US to brief key interlocutors about the threat of Pakistan-backed terrorism faced by India and India's strong resolve against terrorism. "These committees all work on consensus and it's not really possible for a chairman to single-handedly get something through that the others resist or push a particular line that other countries are not in favour of," Tharoor said during an interaction at the Indian Embassy here on Thursday. Pakistan, a non-permanent member of the Security Council for the 2025-26 term, will chair the Council's Taliban Sanctions Committee for 2025 and will be vice-chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the 15-nation UN organ. Guyana and Russia will be vice-chair of the 1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee. Algeria will chair the 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee while France and Russia will be the other vice-chairs. Pakistan will also be co-chair of the Informal Working Groups on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions and on the General UNSC Sanctions Issues. India has consistently reminded the international community that Pakistan is host to the world's largest number of UN-proscribed terrorists and entities. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan's Abbottabad for years and was killed in an operation by the US Navy Seals in May 2011. During the Parliamentary delegation's interaction at the Embassy with think tankers and young professionals, Tharoor was asked about Pakistan chairing the two UNSC sanctions committees. Noting that there are half a dozen counterterrorism committees of the UNSC, he said that Council members take turns presiding over such bodies. "So as long as Pakistan is on the Security Council, this kind of "privilege" might come their way... We are not exactly friendless on the Security Council, so we're fairly confident that that is going to be a designation without much practical consequence," he said. He underlined that India's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York will monitor this carefully. On Wednesday, during a press conference at the Embassy, responding to a question by PTI on Pakistan given charge of the two committees, Tharoor said "it's a Taliban Committee these guys have got. I don't know what the feelings of the Afghans are about this, but there you are." Tharoor said UNSC members get the monthly rotating presidency of the Council. "It's as simple as that. There's nothing more than that. And many of these positions are rotational.... There are a number of UN institutions and committees, and so one shouldn't exaggerate, all the members of the Council automatically belong to all these committees and chairmanship rotates." He highlighted that there are various committees of the Security Council, such as one pursuant to resolution 1540 that deals with preventing non-state actors from acquiring, developing or using nuclear weapons. "It would have been really funny if Pakistan had been given that particular chairmanship, but that at least mercifully, has not happened." Pointing out that the UNSC committees work on consensus, he said there is no way that the chairman, whoever it may be, can get a particular point of view through or get something accepted or rejected merely by virtue of being chairman. "The others will weigh in very heavily. And we are not exactly friendless in the Security Council, and therefore in its committees," he said. The delegation, which had arrived from India in New York on May 24, had travelled to Guyana, Panama, Colombia and Brazil before arriving in Washington Tuesday afternoon for the last leg of the tour. Tharoor pointed out that the delegation did not go to the United Nations headquarters in New York. "For us, it's more a series of bilateral exercises with countries that we believe need to be sensitised to our point of view, and as I said, that mission has been successful." The delegation led by Tharoor includes Sarfaraz Ahmad (JMM), Ganti Harish Madhur Balayogi (TDP), Shashank Mani Tripathi (BJP), Bhubaneswar Kalita (BJP), Milind Deora (Shiv Sena), Tejasvi Surya (BJP) and India's former Ambassador to the US Taranjit Sandhu. It met US Vice President J D Vance, with Tharoor describing the meeting as "excellent". A parliamentary delegation from Pakistan led by Chairman of the Pakistan People's Party and former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also landed in the US at the same time as the Tharoor-led delegation from India. Bhutto met UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres with his delegation as well as Security Council Ambassadors in Pakistan's bid to internationalise the conflict with India as well as the Kashmir issue. Tripathi added that during the delegation's travels, countries voiced support for a permanent seat for India at the UN Security Council. "So this whole idea of Security Council that we've been saying, what was very interesting for us is that other countries are thinking the same about India, which is a very helpful thing." Sandhu added this highlights how seriously Pakistan will take terrorism, especially in the "responsible position" they are given and it also talks of how much authority and power the Pakistani "General or Field Marshal" has given the delegation led by Bhutto. (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
India Today
an hour ago
- India Today
Why Pakistan monitoring Taliban in UNSC is a rogue on police duty
Pakistan as chair of the UNSC's 1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee for 2025 may appear like a routine act in international diplomacy, but it's seemingly a deeply troubling irony. It will hold this position till December 31, 2025, while also serving as one of the vice-chairs of the 15-member UNSC's Counter-Terrorism accused of harbouring and aiding the Taliban, from its formation in 1994 to its resurgence in 2021, Pakistan is now tasked with overseeing punitive measures against it. Yet, there's a parallel truth to it — the Taliban, the very force Pakistan once nurtured, now appears increasingly estranged from it. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an offshoot of the outfit, has unleashed waves of deadly violence across the country over the years. In 2024, nearly 15,000 Taliban fighters reportedly mobilised towards the Durand Line after Pakistani airstrikes targeted TTP positions inside signs of this estrangement are evident diplomatically too. The Taliban government in Afghanistan recently condemned the Pahalgam terror attack in India, stating that "such acts threaten regional security". This statement came during External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's first outreach to the "acting Afghan foreign minister", Amir Khan Muttaqi, on May 15, though India has not officially recognised the Taliban ARE SOME CONCERNS?Now, with Pakistan as the chair of the committee responsible for overseeing sanctions, including asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes against individuals and entities associated with the Taliban that threaten peace and security in Afghanistan and the region, the concerns are PLATFORM TO PAK: Firstly, though Pakistan's appointment as the chair is as per UN norms, it gives the seemingly rogue nation a legitimate platform and undermines the credibility of the UN to combat terrorism. Moreover, Islamabad can use this position to deflect or downplay India's longstanding allegations of its support for terrorism and whitewash its case on an international diplomatic has consistently raised concerns about Pakistan hosting the world's largest number of UN-proscribed terrorists and terror entities. One of the biggest examples of this was al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was found hiding in Abbottabad, about 1.5 kilometres from the Pakistani military's compounds, before being killed in a 2011 US is also the most persistently flagged country on the Financial Action Task Force List (FATF) grey list, as many as three times. India will reportedly send a dossier to the FATF before its plenary meeting in June to push for the re-inclusion of Pakistan in its grey list. The government will also reportedly oppose further World Bank funding to DISRUPT INDIA-TALIBAN DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS: Secondly, it is important to note that the Taliban administration and India have been intensifying ties since the outfit again came to power in Kabul on August 16, Pakistan chairing the sanctions committee against the Taliban, it may use the position to closely monitor or disrupt these diplomatic efforts, especially if it believes India's engagement with the Afghanistan government threatens Islamabad, mainly in the wake of the conflict on the Durand Line, and the Balochistan 2021, when the Baloch insurgency gained renewed momentum, Islamabad has repeatedly accused New Delhi of fomenting unrest in the it has also been alleged that Afghanistan provides a safe haven for Baloch insurgents, particularly in the border provinces of Nimroz and Kandahar. It is important to note that many Baloch tribes have straddled the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for centuries and share deep cultural and linguistic ties with communities in southern parallel dynamics — India's growing regional influence and the ethnic affinity between Balochs and Afghans — have long unsettled decisions in the UNSC committees are made by consensus, chairs have significant procedural influence, like meeting agendas and the framing of development has also triggered a political storm in India, with the Opposition Congress saying that Pakistan getting such positions in the UN shows that India's foreign policy has collapsed. The Congress urged that the Centre must take resolute diplomatic actions to de-hyphenate India and Pakistan on the global the Indian government has not officially responded, it remains to be seen how New Delhi's diplomatic machinery will counter Pakistan's use of international InMust Watch
The Print
an hour ago
- The Print
Ashoka University began as a bold promise. Sanjeev Bikhchandani has diminished it
To this day, I continue to defend this experiment. Building an institution from scratch, and one that demonstrates academic rigor and draws in talent to one of the most unlikely places, is no small feat. This is too often overlooked, and it feels insincere not to acknowledge Ashoka's achievements, given the scale of the undertaking. Critics often argue that Ashoka is destined to fail because it aspires to be an alternative to India's public education system, caught between private ownership and the ability to uphold the public good. But that framing is incomplete—and, in my opinion, conveniently distracting from some surprising areas of success. I was a student there for a year, from 2017 to 2018, enrolled in the Young India Fellowship— a postgraduate liberal arts programme, which predates the founding of the university. I arrived from the predictably arcane academic training at the University of Delhi. I was supported by considerable need-based financial aid, and found myself in rural Sonepat, at a liberal arts university. Luxuries come at luxurious prices, and that surprises no one. But, I felt that the library, the rigorous critical writing program, and the top-tier faculty alone had already exceeded the value I had paid. The concept of this university seemed novel because it was. An experiment can fail again and again before it succeeds—but something deliberated to fail is bound to be a failure. Ashoka University began as a bold promise in 2014, the same year India placed its hopes in a new administration. Critics surfaced early, but the university's rising academic reputation, growing enrollment, and early successes across disciplines defied most skepticism. Its very success became a rebuttal to doubt over its model. Defending the promise Over the years, I have discussed where Ashoka's ideals have fallen short. Yet, I have also continuously defended it as an institution that was shaping new ideals of what private universities in India can be. Normatively, a state like India can, and should, invest in robust public education systems, while allowing private initiatives especially those like Ashoka, to set meaningful precedents. It only took surprisingly few years for Ashoka to demonstrate successful academic partnerships, research ecosystems, and institutional models. In my cohort, students came from many corners, from Madhubani to Sopore to Tirunelveli, and even as far as U.S. and Ireland. Many of them were mentored with care and intention, and went on to become award-winning journalists, filmmakers, and entrepreneurs. Often, these people came from circumstances that would never allow for escape velocity. To not acknowledge their individual accomplishments would be an act of insincerity. In similar breath, perhaps it is also imperative to acknowledge that many individual successes were thanks to the sustained interest and efforts of the founders of Ashoka University. 'The place seemed to be bubbling with intellectual ferment,' recalled Professor Pushpesh Pant in 2021, lamenting Ashoka's recent decline. While Ashoka may not have fully matched the liberal arts models of Western institutions it aspired to emulate—at least not immediately—it nevertheless became a credible and increasingly successful pipeline to those academic worlds. I myself went on to obtain a graduate degree from Harvard in 2024—a trajectory shaped in no small part by the foundation, and the gumption, that Ashoka provided. But there was a bubbling of another kind that had always existed. As Ashoka grew in prominence and intellectual engagement, it also cultivated students and faculty who actively embraced the values of liberal education. Students spoke out against gendered restrictions in hostels, raised concerns against occupational safety issues affecting campus workers, and most notably, protested the unjust exits of their professors. Some resignations in the university passed quietly. Others—such as those of Vice Chancellor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, and economists Sabyasachi Das and Pulapre Balakrishnan, made national headlines. In parallel, we alumni were witnessing the fast churn of faculty members who had been central to our academic journeys. Faculty turnover is to be expected over the years, especially as many academics were guest faculty. But the sheer number of exits, and the untimely nature of many of them, gave the impression that an academic sanitation unit was quietly keeping vigil. Also read: What Ashoka University founder wrote to ex-student on the Ali Khan Mahmudabad issue An arrest and a message In May 2025, Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad, Chair of the Political Science Department, was arrested over a Facebook post that raised critical questions about militaristic nationalism in the wake of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. It is worth noting that Prof. Mahmudabad did not speak against India's military response to Pakistan. Rather, he questioned the political framing of the event and voiced concerns on behalf of Indian Muslims. The questions were political because he is a political scientist studying those very groups. His detention has sparked outrage among hundreds of students and alumni, but Ashoka University has remained silent, refusing to publicly support him. Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, one of the key founders of Ashoka, recently responded to an alumnus who had criticized the institution's silence following the arrest of Professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad. In what he himself describes as a 'cruel as it may be' response, Mr. Bikhchandani delivers a message that is, in fact, deeply cruel, both in tone and implications for Prof. Mahmudabad. He portrays Ashoka's students, alumni, and faculty, including Prof. Mahmudabad, as indulging in 'activism,' which he sharply distinguishes from a liberal arts education. He recalls a time in his liberal arts education when there was little to no activism. But since the 1960s, this has simply not been true of American liberal arts colleges and Ivy League universities—institutions Ashoka is modeled after. Liberal arts education centers on critical thinking, the questioning of dominant norms, and exposure to histories of oppression, inequality, and power. That naturally orients students toward social progressivism, if not always political radicalism. A high-performing higher education institution will, by design, produce elites who go on to shape business, politics, media, and the arts. And in the absence of any meaningful affirmative action, universities everywhere largely recycle elites rather than produce them from scratch. For the most part, this has also been true at Ashoka. But exceptions are truly exceptional, and I affirm this by experience. Dichotomy In liberal societies governed by liberal regimes, social progressivism often becomes the etiquette of the elite. Since World War II, many liberal norms have globalized. Whether it's Sciences Po in France, Ashoka in India, or Harvard in the U.S., these institutions produce graduates who are largely ideologically aligned—often embracing values like diversity, inclusion, and civic responsibility. And when liberal regimes come under challenge, universities with contrasting or critical scholarship often bear the brunt. Historical moments may sometimes bring this tension to the fore and sometimes not, but such is the pattern. I decided to write this essay because I was thoroughly disappointed by how Mr. Bikhchandani diminished the very promise that Ashoka created. He deigns the purpose of a university and lowers the vision that defined Ashoka. It is tragic, that the university professors, committed to the idea of Ashoka, find themselves having to carefully explain to its founders that what they have built is too large, too vital, and too promising to be abandoned or diminished. Mr. Bikhchandani claims that activism and liberal arts education are not 'joined at the hip.' To support this, he turns to Google, asking: 'Are all liberal arts universities activist in nature?' and then builds his stance on the AI-generated response. His appeal is not to academic tradition, historical precedent, or lived experience, but to artificial intelligence. Yet it is the very prompt he uses that betrays a crisis of imagination. He is being asked about moral courage, about the university's role in moments of political repression—and instead he answers a question that was not asked: whether all liberal arts institutions are, by definition, activist. What is the syllogism here? Even if activism and liberal arts are not synonymous, they are hardly unrelated. Liberal arts education—by its very structure—cultivates critical thinking, dissent, and moral inquiry. So yes, activism may not be mandatory, but it is certainly not alien to the tradition. 'The fundamental point I am making,' he continues, 'is that activism at Ashoka is a choice and it does not go with the territory. You can be a great liberal arts university and not be activist. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.' Mr. Bikhchandani notably overlays his organizational analysis with that of Info Edge, the multi-sector conglomerate he founded. Since he speaks from life experience, and the experience of being a 'founder' of organizations in general, there may well be some hard-earned wisdom in his words. But drawing direct parallels between Ashoka University's obligations and those of corporations like Info Edge is a flawed analogy. Educational institutions have fundamentally different missions: they exist to foster critical inquiry, intellectual risk-taking, and societal engagement objectives that diverge sharply from corporate priorities like brand protection and regulatory compliance. Priorities may just converge on some organizational issues but Info Edge is not a university, let alone a private, liberal arts university. This is a categorical error of nearly all orders. He then continues: 'In the private sector, we generally stay away from what are termed as 'Politically Exposed Persons.' Should Ashoka have such a policy?' But the concept of 'Politically Exposed Persons' originates from financial regulation, intended to flag risks of corruption and bribery. It is not meant to refer to scholars whose entire academic compendium is devoted to the study of politics—like Professor Mahmudabad, a political scientist whose research focuses on Indian Muslims and the workings of state power. Do the founders of Ashoka not see the trap they are setting for scholars? Political science, and many other disciplines within the liberal arts, require engaging with contentious political realities. To penalize and abandon scholars for doing so is to undermine liberal arts. Ashoka University, the Enterprise I imagine the pressure to represent a university must be immense. University presidents today are being called upon to be braver—to act as a firewall between the wrath of unfavorable governments and the integrity of elite educational institutions. Obsequious behavior at the mere hint of political controversy, therefore, has not been well received by academic colleagues, alumni and students. Ramachandra Guha, who I first read at Ashoka, tweeted upon a controversy over an exit: 'In its journey thus far, Ashoka University had shown much promise. They may have frittered all that away by the spinelessness of their trustees, who have chosen to crawl when asked to bend.' And yet, given the disproportionately higher pressure placed on a small number of trustees, how can Ashoka respond tactfully and still ensure its survival? That is the real question many have asked, and few may have answered. Here, we must meet Mr. Bikhchandani with empathy, and offer him paths that do not demand heroism from him, but do insist on principle. At Harvard, I had the privilege of being Professor Steven Pinker's Teaching Fellow—an extraordinary opportunity to help teach his course Rationality, named after his bestselling book. That semester, in the wake of student protests, Dr. Pinker proposed a new policy emphasizing time, place, and manner restrictions on demonstrations. It was one of those issues I changed my mind about due to considerations of tact and respectability. It is a middle path between what many would call 'activism' and the enterprise of the university. The proposed policies were incorporated by Harvard in 2025, along with an institutional decision to not weigh in on controversial public policy matters. This, perhaps, is an option—tactful, principled, and always available to an institution like Ashoka University. Perhaps it can meet the 'activists' in the middle. Nonetheless, it is both imperative and tactful for Ashoka University The Enterprise to not hire political scientists who face ire for studying politics. Funding challenges are understandable. I have always acknowledged the quandaries and pressures that founders face. In his reply, Mr. Bikhchandani understandably emphasizes his frustrations. It takes immense effort to raise funds for a university. Critics may not fully grasp how difficult that work is and I, too, am far from ever having done it. But still, one must ask: how much money is really traded off when a few academics stand by principle? Is there some optimum point where ideals can safely be compromised? And doesn't political controversy, too, come at the cost of credibility, just a different kind of expense? Abandonment I wish to convey to Mr. Bikhchandani and the founders of Ashoka: what you have created is original, valuable, and deeply needed. Many, like me, are invested in its survival and growth. As Professor Amita Baviskar wrote of the founders and trustees: 'They failed to appreciate that the institution they started had acquired a life larger than their fears.' To articulate Ashoka's originality, one only needs to look at its name—drawn from Ashoka the Great, the Mauryan ruler. After witnessing the devastation of war, Emperor Ashoka turned toward non-violence, tolerance, and the pursuit of knowledge. A university bearing his name ought to have imagined itself as embodying that same spirit of inquiry, moral reckoning, and commitment to the greater good. My year at Ashoka was, in every way, exceptional—intellectually rigorous, emotionally expansive, and, at times, almost caricaturally enjoyable. What we are witnessing now is willful abandonment. And so I put the word abandonment next to the university I once graduated from—not because I abandoned it, but because it abandoned itself. It has strayed too far from the ideals it once aspired to, creating in the process an awkward, uncertain middle, neither brave enough to protect its scholars, nor honest enough to say it won't. In saying that Ashoka has abandoned itself, perhaps I am indulging in activism. I don't know if it was liberal arts or activism—those two things that are not joined at the hip. But I do know there was once a place where I studied Ambedkar, Hegel, Keynes, de Beauvoir, Gandhi, and Arendt. I made friends for life in a year that felt magical. I did not abandon it. It abandoned itself. This article was originally published on Kartikeya Bhatotia's Substack. The author is an alumnus of Ashoka University who writes on public policy. He tweets @bhatoti. Views are personal.
