It’s only March
A weekly conversation on some topics that were on @HT_ED's mind.
Code that can write itself, a yes-no game with tariffs, and the beginning of what looks like an extended period of hostilities in West Asia. 2026 has already seen its fair share of world-changing events, and we are still in the first quarter of the year (although the weather in Delhi, where I am based, is distinctly second-quarterish, more mid-April than early March).
The climate crisis isn’t something anyone is talking of at this time, though fossil fuel (oil and gas) is top-of-mind. As it should be in a week that’s seen the sharpest rise in oil prices in a week since early 2022.
Yes, or no
It’s been a difficult week for the Indian government.
The US and Israel’s attack on Iran came soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel, and while everyone knew the attack was a possibility (with a very high probability, despite the talks in Geneva), the question being asked in New Delhi, and elsewhere, is whether India knew of the coming attack.
If the answer is yes, it raises one set of questions.
And if it is no, it raises another.
Not surprisingly, New Delhi has studiously avoided getting into this discussion.
It’s the same with the torpedoing of an Iranian warship (minus weapons, we are told) off the coast of Sri Lanka. Did India know of the presence of a US submarine in the vicinity? (The Iranian ship was on its way back after a joint exercise with India in Vizag.) Or did it not?
If the answer is yes, it raises one set of questions.
And if it is no, it raises another.
In four months…
This week’s news cycle was also supercharged by happenings in Patna, where Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha.
The National Democratic Alliance—the Bharatiya Janata Party and Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) are its two largest constituents in Bihar—fought the late 2025 assembly elections in the state under the leadership of Kumar, despite his indifferent health, and swept to power winning 202 seats in the 243-member House. The BJP (89) managed to win more seats than the JD(U) (85), but while there was no question of anyone other than Kumar being sworn in as CM, there was a big one of how long he would stay CM.
Most analysts expected the BJP, which has never had a chief minister in the heartland state, to make a play after Kumar had spent some time in office in his fifth term as chief minister. As it turns out, that “some time” has translated into less than four months.
There’s no doubt, though, that Kumar has been good for Bihar.
Kumar’s son, Nishant Kumar, is now expected to be inducted into the Bihar cabinet, and perhaps be made deputy chief minister.
Kumar wasn’t just the JD(U)’s tallest leader; many would say he was the party’s only significant leader. Expectedly, questions are also being asked on the party’s future. Will those in the party uncomfortable with a BJP CM split the JD(U)? Can it last as an independent regional party? And, what does the dynamic of the long-standing relationship (with a few blips) between the BJP and the JD(U) tell us about the national political hegemon’s long-term strategy for alliances?
Tamil Nadu’s PK?
One such alliance is in Tamil Nadu, where the BJP is the junior partner in a grouping headed by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. The Congress is part of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Secular Progressive Alliance.
For over five decades now, the state has been governed by either the DMK or the AIADMK. Elections in the state are due early this summer, and this time, there is a third player, the Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam or TVK, founded and headed by actor Joseph Vijay Chandrasekar, popularly known by the mononym Vijay.
Despite his political inexperience, and his party’s fledgling status, Vijay is getting a lot of attention from media and analysts, almost all of whom expect him to eat into the votes of both the AIADMK and the DMK. The TVK itself is far more ambitious, projecting Vijay as the next chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
If all that sounds familiar, it is because it is reminiscent of how analysts and the media gushed over Prashant Kishore in Bihar. As it turned out, his party, Jan Suraaj, won just 3.4% of the popular vote in the state, and no seats. I won’t be surprised if a similar fate awaits the TVK.
Get ready
The elections will likely be announced next week—perhaps over the weekend of the 14th—which makes the timing of the announcement shuffling governors in several states, including poll-bound Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, a little strange.
It is not clear why Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose resigned, unless there is some substance to the theory that he could contest the upcoming assembly elections in his home state, Kerala.
Numbers
The elections will mean many of us—at least in the Hindustan Times newsroom, which has templates of a unique number-heavy analytical way of covering them—will be dealing a lot in numbers.
Anyone interested in numbers should read a fascinating series in Quanta on the reinvention—the magazine calls it evolution—of mathematics in the late 19th century.
One of the foundations of modern math is set theory, and its best known proponent is Georg Cantor. The mathematician is also remembered for a paper that showed that infinity came in many sizes — a staggering revelation at the time, and one that shaped modern math. Joseph Howlett writes in Quanta on how Cantor actually stole (or borrowed without credit) the idea from another mathematician, Richard Dedekind.
A 50-year anniversary and an injustice
There are many who know Stevie Wonder by his 1984 song I Just Called to Say I Love You, or the 1985 one Part-time Lover. Both were big hits. Wonder even won an Oscar for the former (it was in the movie The Woman in Red). Unfortunately, both songs would figure in the lowest quartile of Wonder’s work, if someone were to rank all his output.
This week, I have been listening to Wonder’s 1976 album, Songs in The Key of Life, one of the best soul and R&B albums ever released (and also his best work, in my opinion). Across two discs and 17 songs, Wonder effortlessly showcases his versatility.