As 2025 draws to a reflective close, readers, critics and librarians across the English-speaking world agree on one thing: this has been a year of bold imagination, deep moral inquiry, and an unmistakable global shift in literary energy. The best books of this year have not merely entertained; they have challenged our assumptions, disturbed our complacencies, and reminded us of the power of language to bridge continents.
When the Eagle Steps Back: Washington’s AI Reckoning and the New Global Tech Order or How the End of AI Bailouts is Rewriting Innovation, Power, and the Future of Human-Centred Technology
Washington’s recent declaration that there will be no federal bailout for the AI sector represents a dramatic shift in global technological thinking. After years of exuberance—fuelled by massive funding rounds, exponential model sizes, and sky-high valuations—the US government has emphatically signalled:
“AI must stand on its own feet.”
This moment reshapes global expectations.
Ukraine at a Strategic Crossroads: Implications for Asia, the Indo-Pacific, and the Emerging Multipolar Security Order
As the 27 November deadline attached to President Donald Trump’s proposed Ukraine peace framework approaches, global politics stands at a critical inflection point. For Ukraine, the ultimatum arrives amid weakened battlefield leverage, internal governance stresses, and sharply declining Western military support. For the United States, it marks an effort to reset its strategic commitments; for Europe, a test of strategic unity and responsibility; and for Russia, a potential exit from a costly war whose long-term economic sustainability is uncertain.
Would America Be Weakened Under a Trump Presidency—And Would China Gain the Upper Hand in the New Global Order?
The twenty-first century is accelerating towards a world without certainties. Old powers feel increasingly constrained, and newer powers feel emboldened. America’s long-held assumption of being the unquestioned leader is being challenged not only by China but also by a constellation of rising middle powers and restless Global South coalitions.
A Trump return to the White House—amid a fractured political landscape, intensifying global crises, new leadership shifts in critical regions, and the aftershocks of the Gaza conflict—raises a sharp question:
Would a second Trump presidency diminish American influence and strengthen China’s grip on the emerging world order?
Or could Trump, paradoxically, reassert US dominance through a disruptive, unorthodox strategic realignment?
Reflections – Msg to Rev. Dr. Abin Abraham
It was truly a wonderful and blessed experience this morning at the residence of Raju and Marina. The way you conducted the house–cleansing service—with holy water, incense, the proclamation of the Holy Gospel, and the solemn marking of the doors and rooms—was deeply moving.
Zohran Mamdani’s New York Victory: The Global City Strikes Back
The clash that Zohran Mamdani’s stunning victory in New York sets up is not one of civilisations — East against West, immigrant versus native — but rather one of competing visions of the world. On one side stands the angry nationalist project inspired by Trumpian populism, steeped in nostalgia for an imagined past of borders and exclusion. On the other stands a cosmopolitan, global-city vision that embraces diversity, mobility, and interconnectedness.
China’s Demographic Crisis: Lessons for India and the World
China, once the world’s most populous nation, is now confronting a demographic crisis that threatens its economic ambitions and global standing. The legacy of the one-child policy, implemented in 1979, has led to a rapidly aging population and a declining workforce. This essay examines China’s demographic trajectory, the flaws of its population control policies, the resulting economic challenges, and the lessons India and the world can learn from China’s experience.
Rapporteur’s Report – 176th Seminar of the Global Millets Foundation & Sustainable Development Forum
The 176th seminar opened with an in-depth presentation by Dr Shal Kakkatil, who stressed the indispensable role of timely medical consultation in preventing and managing urinary and renal diseases. He issued a clear caution against self-medication, highlighting the risks of kidney damage, drug resistance, and complications arising from unsupervised drug use.
He advised that patients should first consult their family physician for initial evaluation and thereafter seek a urologist or nephrologist if necessary. Most urinary disorders arise after middle age due to hormonal shifts, anatomical changes, decreased immunity, and chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension.
Artificial Intelligence: Boon or Doom? The Great Game of the 21st Century
The twenty-first century has been marked by many revolutions, but none so pervasive, so quietly invasive, and so rapidly self-propelling as Artificial Intelligence. What began as a laboratory curiosity in the 1950s has now matured into the most powerful technological force shaping economies, ethics, and even existential reflections. From autonomous vehicles and precision agriculture to intelligent weapons and generative art, AI today is not merely a tool—it is the defining grammar of progress. The march is irreversible; as the World Economic Forum (2024) observes, the world is entering an “intelligence economy” where data is capital and algorithms are labour.
AI’s inevitability stems from three converging streams: exponential computing power, abundant data, and the democratisation of cloud infrastructure.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF TOMORROW – AI, Agriculture, and the Civilizational Rise of Millets
We gather today not as spectators of change, but as authors of destiny, summoned by a turning point so vast, so profound, so irreversible, that history itself will remember what we decide in this very age.
There are moments in the long story of humanity when the future pauses, waiting for courage.
Moments when civilisation must lift its eyes from the dust of routine and look again at the horizon of possibility.
Moments when the world does not ask for silence, but for voice;
not for comfort, but for courage.
This is such a moment.
