The end of a love affair
I am not quite sure when I first fell in love with cricket but the Australians certainly had much to do with my early infatuation. Eknath Solkar was my...
Modi Vs All
In the mid-1990s, as VP Singh was scrambling to help form a non-BJP, non-Cong ‘Third Front’ government, we asked the former prime minister if such a ‘khichdi’ government was...
The Journalist as Neta
Should journalists enter Rajya Sabha on a political party ticket? That’s a question that gnaws at me after Kumar Ketkar, a friend and early mentor, became the Congress candidate...
Battle for North East: Ten takeaways
Maybe it’s the skill of prime minister Modi to convert every state election into a ‘national’ battle but never before has an election result to three small states in...
The Chowkidar against corruption?
The defining image of the 1989 Lok Sabha elections was VP Singh campaigning across the country and claiming that he had in his pocket the Swiss bank account number...
RIP Himmatwali!
Last night, as I tuned into my nightly ritual of listening to a song before sleeping, Sridevi was top of the mind. The tv news since the morning had...
When NiMo meets NaMo
When NiMo meets NaMo One good thing in the often joyless times in which we live is the flowering of satire and cartooning on social media (yes, RK Laxman’s...
Will 220 be the new 272?
February is arguably the nicest month weather-wise in the national capital: the icy Himalayan wind gives way to a gentler cool breeze signaling a gradual change of seasons. This...
What Bollywood could learn from South Cinema
On the day when a group of alleged Karni Sena protestors attacked a school bus in Gurugram, the guest co-ordinator of my prime time tv news show came to...
Two cheers for Judicial ‘revolt’
‘There is one thing that journalists and lawyers have in common, we both love to gossip!’ a senior jurist reminded me helpfully a few days ago. In the week...