Box office hit: How Modi managed media focus
In this open season against the media, the prime minister has chosen to weigh in by describing the “Modi wave” as a “media creation”. It is almost as if...
Choiceless by choice? A NOTA vote is a cop-out
A vote is meant to be a secret ballot, but here is an honest confession: Last Thursday, as I entered the polling booth, I was confronted with a strange...
Modi needs to look beyond high-profile individuals
He is an expert in turning a lie into the truth. It is the BJP’s principle to divide the nation and rule. Wherever the BJP government is in power,...
Time for media to turn the gaze inwards
The editor as the gatekeeper of news is being replaced by the editor as fixer or editor as larger-than-life egoistical ‘star’ This is open season against the Indian media....
In Indira’s image: How Narendra Modi is similar to a Gandhi
Narendra Modi today claims to derive inspiration from Sardar Patel and Swami Vivekananda even if his original icon was the long-serving RSS chief Guru Golwalkar. Patel and Vivekananda are...
AAP’s long-term future will not be decided by TV
The phrase ‘tyranny of distance’ was first used by writer Robert Hughes in his epic book Fatal Shore on the history of Australia, a country seemingly burdened by its...
1984 riots vs 2002 riots: all that matters is accountability
Where were you during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots? It’s a question I have been often asked by some twitter followers who wrongly accuse me of having only focused on...
Modi, Rahul, Kejriwal competing to ‘shake up’ the system
In the 1970s, there was the anti-establishment hero; in 2014, there is the anti-establishment neta. I once asked Javed Akhtar whether he and Salim Khan had created the ‘angry...
If Kejriwal fails to deliver he may end up victim of his own success
The ubiquitous Rotary Clubs are a decent indicator of the urban upper middle class mood. Rotarians are often professionals with a conscience: from blood donation drives to charity runs,...
There’s reason for cheer: 2014 may be better than 2013
A year can be almost an eternity in a country like India: last December, there was a sense of doom and gloom around us. Angry citizens had taken to...