Manish Sabharwal writes: How to renovate India’s soft power

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Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s poem ‘Ye Nav Varsh Hamein Sveekar Nahin’ suggests it makes no sense for India to celebrate the new year in December when things are cold, foggy, dark, and barren. He advocates waiting a few months till nature flourishes, colours return, and harvests begin. Dinkar captured my frustration at being forced to adopt the synchronised global activity slowdown starting mid-December but this Western upstream control of calendars, time zones, measures, protocols, rankings, ratings, and much else represents valuable soft power built on brains. I make the case that geopolitical churn makes accelerating the ongoing renovation of the five...