Congress’s Make or Break Election
Defeat in sport can be dispiriting and contagious. In the 1980s, most teams lost to the great West Indian side even before they reached the pitch out of sheer...
No Ram or Rafale, the Rozi Roti election in MP
In the age of T-20 style elections — instant opinion, shoot and scoot polls and parachute reporting — it is increasingly difficult to confidently predict an Indian election outcome....
DeMo@2: What’s to ‘celebrate’?
For a government which has mastered the art of event management and never missed an opportunity to ‘celebrate’ a slew of anniversaries, there has been a markedly muted response...
CBI’s ‘War’: Gujarat Model comes to Delhi
In the 70 mm cacophonic build up to the 2014 general elections, a recurring theme was the hype around the so-called ‘Gujarat model’. The BJP’s narrative through the campaign...
Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Test’ Now
For four years and a bit, every time there has been a major state election, the dominant narrative is to call it a ‘test’ for prime minister Narendra Modi...
Is Modi government being unnerved by Rafale ‘war’?
Politics in the media age is increasingly about perception management which in turn is about shaping the narrative to your advantage. The UPA 2 government lost the plot when...
Kaamdar vs Naamdar: is Cong falling into a BJP trap?
One of the more persistent criticisms against the Narendra Modi government has been that far too many of its ministers seem to have very little work to do and...
Will Rafale 2019 be Bofors 1989?
Rahul Gandhi was just seventeen years old when the Bofors gun payoff scandal first exploded, a corruption charge that would tar his father Rajiv Gandhi’s reputation and eventually push...
Tracking India in the Modi era – The-Ken Interview
“When sensation has replaced sense or noise has replaced news, you know, you feel—I don’t want to say that, but I feel almost an anachronism. Ancient, wrestling with self-doubt.”...
Vajpayee was the torchbearer of a gentler political era
Of the many stories of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s remarkable ability to win friends and influence people, there is one that stays in the mind. The prime minister was in...