India enters 2026 with a strategy "rooted in openness without deep alignment, engagement without dependency and pragmatism without abandoning long-term goals." India has continued to purchase Russian oil "despite the imposition of tariffs by the US and other external pressures." ET. "Russian crude continues to flow into India," although, according to commodity market analytics firm Kpler, it was down to 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in December, from 1.84 bpd in November. TNIE. "Perhaps the most nuanced element of India's new global playbook is its cautious warming towards China." Perhaps there is no other option. The US Department of Defense's 2025 assessment is that "China is not building its armed forces for dramatic battlefield victories alone. It is building them to impose control." "India has already been living under this strategy since 2020." "Beijing treats territorial claims, including those against India, as 'core interests' tied to regime legitimacy. That framing leaves little space for compromise." SNG. We retaliated by poking the Dragon in the backside. "The recently released teaser of Salman Khan's war drama Battle of Galwan has triggered a strong reaction from China." The Global Times said it is "over-the-top" and "distorts facts". NDTV. On 5 May 2020, savage Chinese troops launched a barbaric surprise attack on Indian soldiers at Galwan Valley in Ladakh, armed with clubs with protruding nails, murdering 20 Indian soldiers. wikipedia. After denying any casualty, China eventually admitted the loss of four of its soldiers, but a report claimed that the actual number was 42 Chinese killed. NDTV. On 9 December, 24-year-old MBA student from Tripura Anjel Chakma was stabbed to death in Dehradun in Uttarakhand for objecting to racial abuse. "We are not Chinese...We are Indians. What certificate should we show to prove that," were his last words. TOI. According to Dehradun Police, abusing Chakma as a Chinese was "in jest" and "not a racial attack". NDTV. Really? Why then was he killed for insisting he is Indian? Next door, in UP, the government filed an application in court to withdraw charges against 10 Bisada villagers for lynching Mohammad Akhlaq in September 2015 on suspicion of possessing beef. The judge rejected the appeal. TOI. Is the UP government saying that nobody killed Akhlaq and his wounds were self-inflicted? On 17 December, a 31-year-old migrant worker from Chhattisgarh was brutally beaten to death on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi. In a grotesque paradox, this man's name was Ramnarayan Baghel. NDTV. "In many parts of India, Hindus often invoke the popular god Ram's name as a greeting. But in recent years, Hindu lynch mobs have turned Ram's name into a murder cry," wrote Geeta Pandey for the BBC. Ram and Narayan are both manifestations of Lord Vishnu. You can't get more Hindu than that. Hindus worship God in many forms. wikipedia. But Hindus have never fought, or even argued, as to whose god is greater. Our religion is being perverted to win elections. That is criminal. But the greater crime is the silence of the educated middle and upper classes who are making excuses for this corrupt immoral regime. A divided society is weak. China is grinning.
