It’s now ‘Modi vs All’
The BJP and the Shiv Sena were once seen as ‘natural allies’ but life for the original saffron alliance is not quite the same in the age of Narendra...
Will politics shrink in 2017?
We live, to put it mildly, in “interesting times”. This is an age where TV family serials have given way to political soap operas: Are Akhilesh and Mulayam at...
Has Modi done an Indira?
Last month in an interview I asked Congress president Sonia Gandhi if she would concede that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a similar personality to Indira Gandhi, tough and...
Jayalalithaa: FIlm star politician number one!
As an MP, actor Govinda had one of the worst attendance records in Parliament: He attended less than 10% of the sittings in the Lok Sabha and spoke for...
Demonetisation: Modi risks winning battle, losing war
For those still surprised by prime minister Narendra Modi’s audacious demonetisation gamble, the past maybe a useful guide. In 2007, just ahead of the Gujarat assembly elections, Mr Modi...
Trump, Modi and the liberal media bias.
In the aftermath of Narendra Modi’s victory in the 2012 Gujarat assembly elections, a much-respected writer-activist known for his liberal views had accosted me at a dinner: “I heard...
Tele-democracy, Trump and Modi
The latest opinion polls in the US are suggesting a much tighter race for the country’s presidency but the debate in Washington DC, at least, has slowly shifted from...
Family first politics
In the build-up to the 2012 Uttar Pradesh elections, I was travelling with Akhilesh Yadav on a campaign tour. Our morning breakfast shoot was in a room where the...
Stop the ‘marketing’ of surgical strikes
In the 1980s when Rajiv Gandhi had chosen to attack his opponents by warning that “hum apne virodhiyon ko unki naani yaad dila denge” (we will make our opponents...
Modi’s firm message but can war-mongers be kept at bay?
In the universe of the 24×7 media, there is literally no place to hide. Which is why it should come as no surprise that a video of Prime Minister...