Op-Eds Opinion

Mamata Banerjee vs. ECI: Why Bangladesh’s ‘Stamp and Stuff’ Model is the New ‘Free and Fair’

By BPN News Desk February 18, 2026

If you have seen the viral videos from the recent Bangladesh elections, you witnessed a level of efficiency that would put any corporate employee to shame. In one clip, a polling agent—let’s call him the “human voting machine”—grabs a booklet of ballot papers. With the speed of a college student copying an assignment five minutes […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Israel Autonomous Guard Entry Into India And Akashteer’s Expansion Into A Full Air Defence Grid

By BPN News Desk February 18, 2026

Start with the development: Israel defence firm Autonomous Guard entering the Indian market with AI-based passive detection systems. This is not a missile purchase but the addition of a sensor layer. It links directly to India’s ongoing air-defence transformation where the focus is shifting from standalone weapon platforms to a networked defence architecture controlled by

Op-Eds Opinion

India’s AI Policy Chooses Multilingual Access Over Technological Leadership

By BPN News Desk February 18, 2026

India recently showcased two developments meant to signal the arrival of its AI era. First, the government announced expansion of the national AI compute capacity from roughly 38,000 GPUs to about 58,000 GPUs. Second, during the Union Budget speech, Sarvam AI demonstrated live multilingual voice translation of the Finance Minister in multiple Indian languages. Both […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Imran Khan Controversy and Pakistan’s Civil Military Equation

By BPN News Desk February 17, 2026

The incarceration of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and recurring concerns about his health have placed Pakistan under an intense political spotlight. What might ordinarily remain a domestic legal matter has expanded into a national power question. The issue is no longer only whether a politician committed violations, but how and why the state responds […]

Op-Eds Opinion

$100 Billion AI Bet of Adani: India Is Trying to Run the World’s AI Operations

By BPN News Desk February 17, 2026

The announcement that the Adani Group intends to invest roughly $100 billion into AI-ready data centre infrastructure by 2035 should not be read as another infrastructure expansion story. It is a signal about how India is choosing to participate in the global artificial intelligence race. The United States is trying to build the most powerful […]

Op-Eds Opinion

UPI Everywhere But Cash Rising: What India’s Election Cycles Reveal About Political Cash Networks

By BPN News Desk February 17, 2026

Stand at almost any shop counter in India today and you will see the same sign: scan and pay. From metropolitan supermarkets to roadside tea stalls, retailers increasingly prefer digital settlement. They avoid the hassle of change, accounting becomes easier, and payments leave a clean record. Yet at the same time, official currency data shows […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Mohsin Naqvi Showed Up For Drama And Ran From Defeat

By BPN News Desk February 17, 2026

Mohsin Naqvi did not walk into the Pakistan team environment before the India match as a cricket administrator. He walked in as a spectacle. And like most spectacles, it worked perfectly until reality began. The build-up to the match had already been inflated far beyond sport. There was talk of boycott threats, political signalling and […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Citizenship For Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees In India

By BPN News Desk February 17, 2026

Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees Citizenship Request: Why India Keeps Them Stateless Despite 35 Years The immediate trigger is Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to grant citizenship to long-term Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in India for decades. Nearly one lakh people who fled the civil war in the […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Rafale Bombs Made In India: The Real Start Of India’s Smart Weapons Industry

By BPN News Desk February 17, 2026

When the BEL–Safran HAMMER joint venture was announced, it was treated like another routine “Make in India” defence press release. Another agreement, another assembly line, another promise of localisation. But this project is fundamentally different from most of India’s past defence manufacturing efforts. This time India is not trying to build the aircraft. It is […]

Op-Eds Opinion

Manjrekar’s Twitter Lecture After India-Pakistan Match, When Ex-Players Chase Relevance Instead Of Responsibility

By BPN News Desk February 16, 2026

He didn’t say it during commentary. He didn’t analyse it in a column. He didn’t even frame it as a cricketing discussion. He posted it on Twitter, instantly turning the aftermath of an India Pakistan match into a debate about his opinion rather than the match itself. Sanjay Manjrekar’s lecture on the absence of a […]