Ashutosh Bhardwaj

Writes.

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

In 2013, I ran away from work to listen to him speak. In 2025, when the world tunes into the master, a forgotten chapter of my life returns to me.

László Krasznahorkai once ignited my dreams and, perhaps, also lent them the sense of an ending.

https://t.co/71PWEeNPv2

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

2011: My first yr of reporting, walked with him on Noida-Aligarh padyatra - returned unimpressed.

2013: Saw him abandoning the Cgarh Cong after Naxals killed the state leadership.

2020: Published this --- Rahul G 'lacks the CV' to lead a national party.
https://t.co/nCug2JUOqq

[Zhuo Chen | Katrina @SouthernM46171]

This piece raises something worth sitting with. The fact that India exported Buddhism to China gets repeated constantly in Indian discourse — and it's historically accurate. But China took that tradition and rebuilt it into something entirely its own: Chan, Pure Land, Huayan.

Buddhism actually declined in India while flourishing across East Asia. The gift outlasted the giver, and grew into something the original sender wouldn't fully recognize. That this part of the story gets quietly dropped says something about what the narrative is actually for.

It points to a broader pattern. A significant part of India's strategic class has carried a quiet assumption for decades: a democracy with a large English-speaking elite and civilizational depth should naturally outpace an authoritarian neighbor.

One senior Indian diplomat argued, seriously, that China views Indian democracy as an ideological threat. To make that argument, you have to believe Indian democracy is delivering something so compelling that Beijing lies awake worrying about it — which requires ignoring a great deal of evidence.

China has developed at a scale and speed that made even Washington cautious. That's a hard thing to sit with if your worldview is built on democratic superiority.

The response has largely been to lean into a narrative of Chinese bullying and regional hegemony — which has real elements of truth — but which also sidesteps the more uncomfortable question of why the gap opened in the first place.

The research problem makes all of this worse. Having gone through a substantial volume of Indian writing on China, the analytical quality is genuinely weak — frequently below the standard of American China studies, itself imperfect.

The specific gap is domestic China research: scholars seriously engaging with Chinese internal politics, bureaucratic dynamics, social change, or leadership logic are rare. Most Indian China analysis is built on English-language secondary sources filtered entirely through the India-impact lens.

The result is that when Beijing makes a significant policy move, Indian analysts often have no real framework for understanding what's driving it internally. Everything gets interpreted as a move in the India-China game, when China is frequently thinking about something else entirely.

#India #China #IndiaChinaRelations #ChinaStudies #Geopolitics #SouthAsiaWhy China Never Captured the Indian Imagination https://t.co/aYyWoVsBUJ

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

Follow him for a beautiful story unfolding at Lodhi Garden.

[Hridayesh Joshi @hridayeshjoshi]

आज सुबह की ताज़ा ख़बर ये है कि ग्रे हॉर्निबल मादा घोंसले से बाहर आ चुकी है और बच्चे अभी भीतर ही हैं। आज की सुबह काफी एक्शन पैक्ड थी और पाइड हॉर्नबिल और ग्रे परिवार के बीच धींगामुश्ती होती रही। मैं कैमरे पर कैद करने के बजाय मैं चुपचाप देखता ही रहा। आपको पिछले ढाई हफ्ते से चल रही इस हॉर्नबिल रोमांचकारी कथा का पूरा वर्णन जानना है तो कुछ देर में सुबह 10 बजे हमारे यू-ट्यूब चैनल पर आइये। वीडियो का लिंक कमेंट सेक्शन में है। @VJBedi @devasar @Bharati09 @indian_pitta @anuradhamathur @prernao2

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

PM now monitoring NEET.

His past record is poor.

My former colleague @ankit_raj12 had once written a brilliant series on a premier institution headed by Modi.

How a blacklisted Gujarat company with BJP links is conducting key exams, marked by leaks and FIRs and arrests.

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

Paper leak: UP blacklisted a Gujarat company, which is now conducting CSIR Stage II exam.

Stage I already under probe, case before CAT, candidates in jail, but CSIR headed by Modi is going ahead with the same company.

@ankit_raj12 investigates.
https://t.co/pxUj3INPui

[jonathan selvaraj @jon_selvaraj]

Wow. WFI stops Vinesh Phogat from competing in the women's 53kg category at Asian Games selection trials. Says she is only allowed to compete in 50kg category. She is only informed of this decision in the morning as she prepared to give weight for the selection trials.

[Newslaundry Hindi @nlhindi]

#NLCharcha में इस हफ्ते युवाओं के व्यंग्यात्मक पलटवार 'कॉकरोच जनता पार्टी' पर विस्तार से बात हुई.

@BeechBazar के संचालन में हुई इस बातचीत में @PMishra_Journo, @ashubh और @vikasjangraji शामिल हुए.

सुनिए पूरा पॉडकास्ट (इस हफ्ते बिल्कुल फ्री) : https://t.co/l7qA8gqOJE

[Hridayesh Joshi @hridayeshjoshi]

जिन लोगों को पक्षी संसार के बारे में अधिक पता नहीं उनके लिए बता दूं कि पेड़ में जो छेद है वह एक घोंसला है जिसमें इंडियन ग्रे हॉर्निबल नाम की मादा अपने नवजात बच्चों को बड़ा कर रही है। उसने भीतर से छेद को बन्द कर लिया है (जैसा कि यह मादा बच्चों को जन्म देने बाद करती है) और बच्चों के बड़ा होने पर ही वह बाहर निकलेगी। मादा ने एक एक छोटा सा छिद्र खुला छोड़ा है जिससे बच्चों का पिता उन्हें भोजन देता रहता है। यहां तक सब सामान्य है .. कहानी में मोड़ यहां से आता है।
इस वीडियो में दिख रही दूसरी चिड़िया जो ओरिएंटल पाइड हॉर्नबिल प्रजाति की है (वह भी मादा है) लेकिन वह दिल्ली में नहीं दिखती... विशेषज्ञों के मुताबिक इसका यहां होना और इस ग्रे हॉर्नबिल और उसके बच्चों को भोजन देना एक अजूबा है.. इसे देखने ही मैं गया था और खुशकिस्मती से दोनों ही पक्षियों (नर ग्रे हॉर्नबिल और मादा ओरिएंटल पाइड हॉर्निबल को भोजन खिलाते देख पाया )
ऐसी जानकारियों से भरे वीडियो में अपने चैनल एंड एनर्जी टॉक पर बनाते रहता हूं। सब्सक्राइब और जॉइन करें। लिंक कमेंट सेक्शन में है।
वीडियो - हृदयेश जोशी

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

As someone generates instant online galvanization, here's an old text - not an oped, but a reportage, drawn out of my reporting years on the Sangh.

Besides Hindutva, RSS also embodies some deeper traits. Ignore them, and you never get the swayamsevak.
https://t.co/ysawgFHrb0

[The Wire हिंदी @thewirehindi]

एनसीईआरटी के दिल्ली स्थित मुख्यालय ने 8 मई को एक सर्कुलर जारी किया था, जिसमे लंच ब्रेक को नियंत्रित करने और कार्यालय समय के दौरान कर्मचारियों के कैंपस से बाहर जाने पर रोक लगाने की बात कही गई है.

@shrutik_sharma✍️
https://t.co/8yMqPOLHBp

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

Subodh Kumar Singh was the DG NTA in 2023-2024.

Using his photo here is both inaccurate and slanderous.

[Indian Tech & Infra @IndianTechGuide]

🚨 "NEET-UG 2026 had no paper leak; only certain questions were out," says NTA chief.

[Manisha Pande @MnshaP]

* FIR directed to be registered by the Magistrate on 22 April

* No stay on this order as on date (Delhi HC has, on 20 May, set aside the stay granted by the Revision Court on 4 May). But no FIR yet.

@DCPSouthDelhi @DelhiPolice

[Africa Is a Country @africasacountry]

The Granta controversy surrounding a Commonwealth Prize-winning story tells us less about AI than about the enduring metropolitan expectation that writing from the South should sound opaque, excessive, and primitive. https://t.co/qn169CjfLM

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

The sofa's height may just be a conjecture, but it reminded of this episode recorded in Ashis Nandy's essay.

[TaraBull @TaraBull]

The sofa cushion was clearly custom made to make Xi’s seat noticeably higher than Trump’s, even though Trump is 4 inches taller.

[Prem Panicker @prempanicker]

A registered consumer in Bangalore pays ₹915 for an LPG cylinder. Her neighbour, a migrant worker without paperwork, pays ₹2,800 for the same cylinder. This is how markets shed the poorest first. Excellent reporting from @mrajshekhar and team at CarbonCopy.

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

दलित चिंतक तुलसी राम की आत्मकथा 'मुर्दहिया' और धर्मवीर भारती का उपन्यास 'सूरज का सातवाँ घोड़ा' हिंदी की महान कृतियाँ हैं.

इनके अंग्रेजी अनुवाद के लिये चंद्रिका दास और राहुल सोनी को पेन ट्रांसलेशन ग्रांट मिला है.

पढ़ें अनुवाद अंश.

https://t.co/eIQDg4nYbI
https://t.co/jV5TTWyWmT

[Manoj Kumar Jha @manojkjhadu]

Such a lovely and touching letter from #Gopalkrishna_Gandhi
Jai Hind

[Rahul Verma @rahul_tverma]

Must-read @Roshanjnu’s column that pushes back against easy institutional alibis and situates the 2026 verdict in deeper political dynamics. A sharp political economy reading with three clear (grim !) takeaways on the trajectory of Indian politics.

https://t.co/8uIkQgo3wA

[Ashutosh Bhardwaj @ashubh]

“Bengal’s contest, far from being a straightforward referendum on Mamata Banerjee, appears to have been influenced by a deeper recalibration of who actually got to vote, and who didn’t.”

This story by Madhuparna Das.

SIR was “a seismic intervention”.
https://t.co/04WzbnVY2P

[Supriya Sharma @sharmasupriya]

Amazing to see an Indian reporter in Iran!

I'll be following @Saurabh_Unmute's reporting and so should you