Times of Better Bharat

The domain has been named

Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff and the Centre for Joint Warfare Studies have inaugurated a seminar in New Delhi on cyber-enabled cognitive warfare ([PIB](https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2331708)). In the bureaucratic grammar of defence, naming a domain is the first act of taking it seriously. It is also, historically, the point at which institutions congratulate themselves and then stop. The release names a theme; it does not, on its face, announce a doctrine, a threshold or a command arrangement. Those are what the country should now be shown, and what this column will judge by.

Cognitive warfare is not a euphemism for propaganda. It is the deliberate targeting of the decision cycle — the will of a population, the confidence of a command, the cohesion of a political system — through the information environment that an adversary can reach at almost no cost. The object is not to persuade a majority but to erode the shared factual ground on which majorities form. A state that cannot agree on what happened cannot agree on what to do.

Why India's exposure is structural

India's vulnerability is a by-product of its success. Some 70% of the population uses the internet and there are 79.4 mobile subscriptions per 100 people ([World Bank / ITU, 2025](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS); [ITU via World Bank, 2024](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2)). Markets, elections and communal peace now run through a channel a foreign actor can reach cheaply and deniably. Defence spending stands at 2.3% of GDP ([SIPRI, 2025](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS)); the marginal rupee spent on a cognitive campaign buys more disruption than the marginal rupee spent on armour. That asymmetry is the entire problem, and it is the reason a two-front adversary would prefer a domestic third front to a shooting one.

From seminar to capability

Three outputs would justify the gathering. First, doctrine — joint, and published at least in outline, so that the services, the security apparatus and the technology ministries are not improvising in separate rooms. Second, attribution: forensic and technical capacity to name an actor, because a response without attribution is a gesture. Third, a mandate over the information environment that does not slide into censorship.

There is a foundation. India sits in Tier 1, "role-modelling", of the ITU's Global Cybersecurity Index, with a score of 98.49 ([ITU, 2024](https://data360api.worldbank.org/data360/data?DATABASE_ID=ITU_GCI&INDICATOR=ITU_GCI_GCI_OVRL_SCRE&REF_AREA=IND)), and ranks 17th of 93 on the Global AI Index ([Observer, 2025](https://observer.co.uk/data/global-ai)). The binding constraint is upstream: research and development spending of 0.6% of GDP ([UNESCO, 2020](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS)). Cognitive capability is built by linguists, psychologists, data scientists and engineers — an expensive, unglamorous roster that no procurement headline rewards. This is a judgement, and it is contestable: indigenisation of platforms matters less here than indigenisation of analytical capacity.

The line that must hold

Two cautions. A state that fights disinformation clumsily becomes the thing it fears; the temptation to police perception is strongest where public trust is weakest. And the adversary is conduct, not community. An Indian of any faith encountering foreign-scripted content is a citizen being targeted, not a suspect — any doctrine that treats a community as a vector has already lost the argument it claims to be fighting. The test of such a doctrine is whether it strengthens the citizen's capacity to judge, or merely the state's capacity to silence.

A seminar is a start. The next deliverable is a doctrine with a name on it, an attribution cell with a budget, and a research line that outlasts the next conference season.

The Supreme Court has dismissed the Union government's challenge to a Delhi High Court order allowing Vedanta Ltd. and Ravva Oil (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. to enforce foreign arbitration awards involving claims of nearly $99 million, and in doing so rapped the Centre for stalling their enforcement ([The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/supreme-court-raps-centre-for-stalling-enforcement-of-vedanta-arbitration-awards/article71656332.ece)).

Read that again as a constitutional sentence rather than a commercial one. The most powerful litigant in the country was told, by the highest court, that its litigation must reach an end like anyone else's.

The State is a party, not a privilege

Equality before the law is not a courtesy the Union extends to citizens on good behaviour. It is the premise on which the Union holds power at all. A government that treats an adverse award as a position to be outlasted rather than an obligation to be honoured has quietly reclassified itself — from first among equals to something above the rule it administers. That is a judgement, and I hold it firmly: the objection here is not that the Centre litigates. Every state litigates, and should. The objection is the reported stalling — the use of the State's unmatched capacity to prolong, not to persuade.

When the largest litigant signals that judgments are negotiable, every smaller litigant hears permission. The landlord, the employer, the contractor, the department clerk all learn the same lesson: compliance is optional for those with stamina. That is how the grammar of anarchy enters a legal system — not with a mob, but with a well-drafted adjournment.

What the numbers say, and what they cannot

No single order moves a country's standing, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. But the direction of travel is not encouraging. The World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index places India 86th of 143, with a score of 0.49, down seven places on the previous year ([WJP](https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/downloads/WJPIndex2025.pdf)). The World Bank's governance indicators put rule of law at -0.13 on a -2.5 to +2.5 scale ([World Bank](https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governance-indicators)). On the same family of measures, judicial checks on the executive score 0.67 on a 0–1 scale ([V-Dem, via Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/judicial-constraints-on-the-executive-index)) — comparatively the healthiest number we have, which is precisely why it must not be spent.

Arbitration is a promise a country makes to strangers and to its own firms: submit your dispute, and a result will follow. A state that treats awards as optional writes a risk premium into every contract signed on Indian soil. With investment running at 34.6% of GDP ([World Bank](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS)), that premium is not an abstraction — it is capital that goes elsewhere.

Even-handedness is the whole test

Let the standard be symmetrical, or it is not a standard. If a private corporation defies an award or an order, the same severity should meet it, without a single plea of size or connections being entertained. The constitutionalist's complaint is never that one side misbehaves; it is that power, whichever hand holds it, expects indulgence.

The remedy is unglamorous and old: obey the order, pay the award, appeal in time, and lose with dignity. A republic is not weakened when its government loses a case. It is weakened when the government behaves as though losing were a category error. The courts have done their duty. The executive's duty now is simpler, and heavier: comply.

The Home Minister has now put a number on it: three crore “illegal infiltrators”, he says, were identified among the thirteen crore voters deleted from the rolls in the SIR exercise, [this newspaper reports](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/amit-shah-backs-sir-alleges-three-crore-illegal-infiltrators-identified-in-13-crore-deleted-voters/article71656858.ece). The claim deserves to be taken seriously — which is exactly why it must be examined rather than repeated.

Two kinds of figure

The arithmetic is where the trouble starts. Thirteen crore deletions and three crore infiltrators are not the same kind of number. A deletion is an administrative act: a name goes because it is duplicated, because a voter has died or moved, or because a notice went unanswered. An “infiltrator” is a legal finding, made against a named person, on evidence, by someone empowered to make it. Nothing in the report suggests that any authority has recorded three crore such findings, or that the deleted list has even been disaggregated by cause. To treat the residue of an administrative process as a settled demographic fact is an inference dressed as a discovery. That is a judgement, and it is the judgement this column is prepared to defend.

Who pays for the shortcut

Consider who bears the cost of the inference. If even a modest fraction of those thirteen crore are living, eligible citizens — and no published break-up tells us otherwise — then a great many Indians have lost the vote without any finding against them. Equality before the law is not a decorative phrase for such moments; it is the rule that the state must make its case person by person, with notice, a hearing and a reasoned order. A statistic cannot do the work of an adjudication.

Note also the asymmetry the claim invites. A person wrongly called a foreigner cannot prove a negative at a public meeting; a person wrongly deleted cannot find a remedy in a speech. Both need a forum, a record and an appeal. Neither should have to depend on whose side is louder that week.

Take the offer seriously

To his credit, the Home Minister has offered precisely that forum: he has challenged the Leader of the Opposition to a debate and said the government is ready to convene a special session of Parliament, [as reported here](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/amit-shah-dares-rahul-gandhi-to-debate-sir-issue-says-government-is-ready-to-convene-special-session-of-parliament/article71657452.ece). Good. Let the session be held, and let the case be laid out there — with the Election Commission’s own category-wise data on deletions, notices issued, objections upheld and names restored. A claim of this magnitude belongs in the record of the House, where it can be tested, not in a rally line where it cannot.

The same standard, applied without exception, should bind the other side too. Whoever alleges a wrong should bring the evidence to the same forum and answer the same questions. Even-handedness is not a favour to one party; it is the only condition under which any of these numbers can be believed by anyone.

A test the Commission can pass

Four columns would settle much of this: deletions by reason, notices served, appeals decided, names restored. Publish them, State by State, and the argument moves from assertion to audit. That is not a concession to critics; it is the ordinary price of running the largest electoral roll on earth. India’s rule-of-law standing has slipped seven places to 86th of 143 in the World Justice Project’s 2025 index ([source](https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/downloads/WJPIndex2025.pdf)), and the remedy for that is not less procedure but more of it — applied to everyone, without exception.

The authority of the roll rests on a single proposition: that no one is removed except by a rule that would remove anyone. Defend that, and the numbers will defend themselves.

The government's own description of PM-Setu is worth reading closely: it will, the release says, strengthen the Northeast's skill ecosystem through industry-led transformation of ITIs, with tourism and hospitality identified as key sectors for global employment opportunities (https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2331736). Two ideas sit in that sentence — an old institution given a purpose, and a sector bet. The first is straightforwardly right. The second deserves an argument.

An old institution, finally pointed at the right people

Industrial Training Institutes are among the cheapest and most dispersed pieces of industrial infrastructure we own. They sit in small towns, not in metros, which is exactly where a decentralised growth model needs capability to exist. "Industry-led" is the correct principle, because a curriculum set by people who actually hire will drift towards what a workshop, a kitchen or a site actually requires. That is the apprenticeship principle this desk keeps returning to: practical training alongside formal education, not in place of it. The guardrail is that industry-led must mean a district's employers in the plural — not one large firm's narrow manpower order.

Tourism is a craft before it is a course

Tourism and hospitality is a defensible choice precisely because it cannot be taught entirely inside a classroom. Guiding, housekeeping, food safety, maintenance of a hill road or a homestay, spoken language — these are learned in place, and the returns accrue in place. India recorded 98,24,000 international tourist arrivals in 2024 (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/international-tourist-arrivals), and ranks 31st of 110 on the World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Development Index, up eight places on 2024 (https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_Index_2026.pdf). Demand for capability is not our constraint; capable supply in places people wish to visit is. That is a judgement, but it is the one on which this scheme stands or falls.

The word to watch is "global"

Remittances to India reached US$150.7 billion in 2025 (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT) — a genuine cushion, and no insult to those who earn abroad. But with GNI per capita at US$2,760 (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD), a scheme that succeeds only in moving young people out has subsidised the export of our demographic dividend. The contrarian measure I would propose: judge PM-Setu in five years not by overseas placements but by how many homestays, guiding outfits, cold chains and hospitality enterprises exist in the districts it touches. Women's labour-force participation stands at 32.4% (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS), and small-town hospitality is one of the few sectors where the entry barrier for women is genuinely low — a design consideration, not a slogan.

The layer everyone forgets

Skill ecosystems rest on a research and standards layer: food safety, local supply chains, hill-construction materials, tourism data. India spends 0.6% of GDP on research and development with 259.3 researchers per million people (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS). Without that layer, an ITI is a training shop; with it, it becomes the hub of a district's spoke economy. PM-Setu is a sound instinct. Let it be asked to prove it is building an ecosystem rather than a recruitment agency.

A number with no margin left

On November 2, Delhi's air quality index reached 324, 'very poor', and Stage-II of the Graded Response Action Plan was invoked. The CAQM's GRAP sub-committee recorded the trajectory plainly: 117, moderate, on October 31; 261, poor, on November 1; 324 a day later ([The Hindu](https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/delhi-chokes-aqi-324-plunges-to-very-poor-stage-ii-grap-invoked/article71657232.ece)). By another account it is the season's first 'very poor' day and the highest reading in nine months ([TOI](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/delhi-records-seasons-first-very-poor-aqi-at-324-grap-2-curbs-imposed-border-checks-snarl-traffic/articleshow/135463669.cms)).

The temptation is to argue about the lever — which vehicles, which days, which exemptions. The more honest reading is that a city needing to ration movement in order to breathe is running on ecological overdraft. The order is not the disease. It is the symptom that finally got a hearing.

An account presented elsewhere

Delhi is the world's most polluted capital at 82.2 µg/m³ on IQAir's 2025 reckoning — and that figure is itself a three-year low. India stands sixth of 143 countries by population-weighted PM2.5 at 48.9 µg/m³, close to ten times the WHO guideline of five ([IQAir](https://www.iqair.com/world-air-quality-report)). Progress and pressure in the same sentence: that is the habit this column intends to keep.

The Environmental Performance Index 2026 places India 176th of 177 with a score of 22.46, a placing marked [CONTESTED]: the Environment Ministry rejected an earlier edition as methodologically unsound, and Yale's own ten-year change for India is positive at +7.47 ([EPI](https://epi.yale.edu/)). A ranking that cannot survive scrutiny should not govern policy. Neither should it be dismissed too comfortably. Here is my judgement, offered as a case to be argued and tested rather than as a finding: the air of our cities is the visible edge of accounts kept in soil, water and trees.

Consider what the figures describe. Forest cover at 24.4% of land area ([World Bank/FAO](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS)); tree cover loss at 1,25,678 hectares a year ([Global Forest Watch](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tree-cover-loss)); 66.5% of available freshwater already withdrawn ([FAO](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ER.H2O.FWST.ZS)); renewables at 24.1% of generation ([Ember](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-renewables)); clean cooking fuel reaching 81% of the population, which is to say roughly a fifth still without it ([WHO/World Bank](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.CFT.ACCS.ZS)). Each of those is also, in some measure, an air figure. A civilisation that loses its trees, its soil carbon and its water retention has not merely lost scenery; it has thinned the machinery that cleans what it breathes.

The part no order can supply

Air is a commons, and commons are held by restraint, not by inspectors. The Supreme Court permitted certified green crackers for two days before Diwali ([TOI](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/delhi-records-seasons-first-very-poor-aqi-at-324-grap-2-curbs-imposed-border-checks-snarl-traffic/articleshow/135463669.cms)). That is a small test, and the honest way to meet it is not defiance but measure.

This is where well-being stops being a private hobby and becomes public duty. The dharmic vocabulary — yajna, the giving back; santosha, contentment; moderation in consumption — is not decoration on ecological policy. Offered as an ethical tradition rather than a scientific claim, it is the one force that reaches the last kilometre, where no sub-committee can stand. A limit observed willingly is worth ten enforced.

GRAP-II will lift. The question is what remains: hectares planted and kept alive, water held in tanks and watersheds, soil organic matter on farms, rooftop generation, and the quiet discipline of wanting a little less.

Bharat's pride and the air in a child's lungs are the same loyalty. One is easier to speak of. Only one of them can be postponed.