Messi for the Powerful, Stands for the Public: How India’s Elites Hijacked a Football Icon

By BPN News Desk December 14, 2025

Op-Eds Opinion

Lionel Messi’s visit to India was marketed as a celebration of football, a once-in-a-generation moment for fans who have followed his career through late-night matches, grainy streams, and emotional highs and lows. What unfolded instead was a carefully choreographed VIP tour where power,

Op-Eds Opinion

Secondary Enemy, Primary Denial: Why Dhurandhar Struck a Nerve

By BPN News Desk December 14, 2025

The backlash to Dhurandhar is revealing not because it is loud, but because it is directionally consistent. The film does not caricature Indian Muslims. It does not turn faith into a proxy for guilt. It does not indulge in the cheap shorthand that has rightly drawn criticism in the past. Yet it has provoked a […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Bollywood Celebrities’ Virtue Signalling and the Hypocrisy Problem

By BPN News Desk December 13, 2025

Celebrities in India have discovered a convenient shortcut to relevance. When the scripts slow down and the spotlight dims, they reach for moral philosophy. The latest exhibit is actor Radhika Apte, who recently expressed discomfort with violence in cinema and linked it to her inability to bring a child into today’s world. On the surface, […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Outskirts + Buses = No Tapovan Trees Need to Die for Kumbh

By BPN News Desk December 8, 2025

Nashik is preparing for the next Kumbh Mela and the first instinct of the administration is not planning, not logistics, not efficiency. It is to pull out the chainsaw. Nearly 1,800 trees in Tapovan have been marked for destruction on the justification that a “Sadhu Gram” must be built there. The state government, led by […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Saving Trees Is Hinduism. Cutting Them for the Kumbh Is Pure Politics.

By BPN News Desk November 30, 2025

The irony would be hilarious if it weren’t so tragic. A festival meant to purify the soul has somehow become an excuse to pollute the city’s conscience. Nashik’s preparations for the upcoming Kumbh Mela should have been about spiritual rejuvenation, cultural pride and orderly planning. Instead, they have descended into a grotesque civic ritual where […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Koyta Raj in Pune: How Fadnavis and Pune Police Let a City Fall to Teenaged Blades

By BPN News Desk November 28, 2025

Pune was once proud of being India’s cultural capital, the academic hub, the IT magnet, the city where families felt safe. Today, it is a city where mothers pray their children return home without crossing paths with a teenager holding a koyta. That is the transformation Maharashtra’s Home Ministry has gifted us. Not progress. Not […]

Op-Eds Opinion

BJP And RSS Built The Hindu Narrative. Now Can They Build The Indian Century?

By BPN News Desk November 26, 2025

For the first time in independent India, Hindu consciousness is not whispered, apologised for or tucked behind constitutional jargon. It stands tall, saffron, sovereign, and utterly unembarrassed. The Dharma Dhwajarohan Utsav in Ayodhya, with Narendra Modi, Mohan Bhagwat and Yogi Adityanath sharing the same stage, was not just a ceremony. It was a declaration. A […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Stop Preaching Innocence: Faith Must Own Its Fanatics

By BPN News Desk November 13, 2025

Every act of terror that shakes the world is followed by the same moral chorus: “Terror has no religion.” It’s repeated so often that it now functions as an emotional bandage rather than an idea. It’s meant to comfort the public, protect the faithful, and silence uncomfortable questions. But denial is not wisdom. The reality […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Selective Outrage: When Data Centres in Arizona Are ‘Smart’ but in Noida Are ‘Sinful’

By BPN News Desk November 6, 2025

India’s data revolution was supposed to be our great digital equaliser — until the moral gatekeepers of the “green conscience” found a new villain: the data centre. The same facilities that power AI, banking, healthcare, and governance are now being recast as water-guzzling monsters. Publications like Down to Earth are suddenly discovering groundwater as if […]

Op-Eds Opinion

India’s Army Doesn’t Need Your Caste Census, Rahul

By BPN News Desk November 6, 2025

There’s a fine line between ignorance and arrogance — and Rahul Gandhi has managed to plant both feet firmly on either side. His latest claim that “10% of the population controls the Army” is not just laughably ignorant; it’s dangerously stupid. At a time when India’s soldiers are freezing in Siachen and fighting infiltration in […]