ICYMI#TheTribuneOpinion: Zohran Mamdani and Indian women cricketers shine as beacons of hope and glory

As Zohran Mamdani won the polls for the New York Mayor, democratic socialism took centre stage. Apart from being known in India as celebrated filmmaker Mira Nair’s son, Zohran brings both a global perspective and a deeply local focus to his work. For a few tremulous hours, one half of India recognised itself in Zohran’s victory, writes The Tribune Editor-in-Chief Jyoti Malhotra in her weekly column The Great Game ‘Sadda beta’ has pushed the envelope. There is one half in India that continues to believe that the idea of New York — energetic and vibrant and messy and authentic — could still be the idea of India, a little bit of this and that. The other half is viscerally critical of Zohran because he is critical of PM Modi’s politics, she writes. At 34, he doesn’t understand the meaning of fear.

Mamdani sees elected office as an extension of social movements — and activism as a supplement to democracy — which is why he comes across as a radical. Mamdani has captivated the New York masses with his aspirational vision for a government that is morally conscious, writes Political Director, NYC New Liberals Tibita Kaneene in the Op-Ed article Why Zohran Mamdani fights for the underdog in New York.

Coming to the night of November 2, it will live forever in the memory of Indian sport. For Indian women’s cricket, winning the ICC Women’s World Cup 2025 was the culmination of years of unheralded labour. This win is more than a sporting triumph. These are not just players. They are the building blocks of a movement, writes former captain of Mumbai cricket team Shishir Hattangadi in his Edit piece From streetlights to floodlights.

In Punjab, though the Centre has finally rolled back the restructuring of Panjab University, last week saw many ups and downs on the issue. In the ‘two views’ segment on autonomy vs control at Panjab University, former PU professor Shelley Walia wrote in his Op-Ed article A blow to autonomy that reforms in the university's governance structure shifts the balance from autonomy toward control. The new Senate may prove efficient in form but hollow in spirit, he writes. Countering him is former PU VC Arun Grover's article The genesis of reforms that the long-awaited reform is a significant course correction for one of India’s oldest and most prestigious universities. It would ease the functioning of the VC's office, improve accountability, streamline decision-making and end conflict between executive authority and vested interests, he argues.

Revisiting the reorganisation of Punjab and the birth of Haryana in 1966, former Punjab cadre IAS officer and J&K Governor NN Vohra writes in his article Two states, divergent paths that there was a school of thought that believed that grouping the “backward” districts of Punjab and creating a rather small Hindi-speaking state of Haryana was bound to be an economic and administrative failure. These prophecies have been proved wrong, he writes. Over the past nearly six decades since its birth, Haryana has done very well and overtaken Punjab in several spheres.

The seven-member Lokpal team recently sought to buy seven BMW cars which created quite a storm. Focusing on the Lokpal, Julio Rebeiro writes in his Edit piece Lokpal has flattered to deceive that in the absence of political will, no Lokpal, except a crusader, will be able to fulfil the expectations of a corruption-free India. The creation of seven posts in the Lokpal setup will only be a drain on the exchequer — without concrete returns, he writes. Instead, measures like re-employing judges to clear backlog of pending court cases, especially criminal cases, could be far more helpful, he writes.

The Trump-Xi meeting has been deconstructed extensively on our Edit-OpEd pages. The immediate outcomes of the meeting are that the US and China have set aside some differences to move bilateral trade forward and reverse the paralysis of recent months, writes senior financial journalist Sushma Ramachandran in her article Trump-Xi summit and India’s trade crossroads. But the measures have left India-US trade by the wayside, she warns.

The new deal between the US and China is all about give and take. This is different from the phase 1 trade deal in 2020 when Beijing was forced to make unilateral commitments to buy American products, writes ORF Distinguished Fellow Manoj Joshi in his Edit piece G2 won’t be music to India’s ears. A major reason for China’s success has been tactics. One thing is clear: the threatened decoupling of the Western and Chinese economies is not around the corner, he writes.  The economic and geopolitical consequences of competitive US-China relations in these areas are hard to forecast. He reiterates, as Sushma Ramachandran wrote, that it is not particularly comforting for countries like India who had counted on the US to maintain geopolitical heft against China.

Talking about India-US trade ties, former foreign secretary Shyam Saran writes in his Edit piece Ifs & buts beset India-US trade deal that if India believes that its strategic partnership with the US helps in countervailing the Chinese challenge, it may need to think again. It seems unlikely that the Quad summit will take place in India before the year-end, as originally scheduled. If India is looking for a ‘triad’ instead of a Quad by intensifying its cooperation with Australia and Japan, what would be its prospects? This needs cautious probing. He stresses on the urgent need to secure our own sub-continental periphery. India must consolidate its engagement with East and South East Asia, he suggests.

Are electric vehicles the best technology for reducing vehicular emissions? They themselves may be 'green' but the entire system for producing and running them is not, writes former Member, Planning Commission, Arun Maira in his Op-Ed article Beyond electric vehicles: The energy reality we ignore. The only way to save humanity from committing humanicide is to discourage further use of non-human energy to displace human labour at home and work, and the replacement of human intelligence with artificial intelligence.