PM Modi and the TINA factor
“We will change the face of India in ten years,” thundered Narendra Modi in a victory speech in Vadodra on May 16, 2014 within hours of his famous general...
Amma and Didi: Cult of the ‘Supremos’
On the face of it, Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee are as different from each other as idli sambar is from macher jhol. The Tamil Nadu chief minister is the...
Terror and politics
“Where you stand is determined by where you sit,” remarked Congress MP Shashi Tharoor recently, in a reference to the changing positions of political parties when in and out...
IPL is the soft target for water crisis
“Everybody loves a good drought” was award-winning journalist P Sainath’s rather intriguingly titled book a few years ago on rural poverty. In the last few weeks, even prime time...
Towards a ‘Congress Mukt’ Bharat ?
We want a Congress Mukt Bharat,” thundered Narendra Modi in the 2014 general election campaign, a slogan echoed repeatedly BJP president, Amit Shah. The declared goal was not just...
Art of Living and Political Loyalty
It was a picture that radiated temporal Lutyens-land power: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar flanked by half a dozen Union Cabinet ministers, including the finance minister, the BJP president, the...
Smriti Irani: time to course correct
Sharad Pawar is a man of few words, Smriti Irani a woman with a vast vocabulary. Last week, when the HRD minister delivered a remarkable “performance” in a Parliament...
हां, मैं राष्ट्र-विरोधी हूं, क्योंकि…
नब्बे के दशक में देश की राजनीति धर्मनिरपेक्षता बनाम छद्म धर्मनिरपेक्षता में विभाजित थी ; अब एक और अधिक घातक विभाजन ‘राष्ट्रवादी’ अौर ‘राष्ट्र-विरोधी’ ताकतों के आधार पर करने...
Yes, I am anti-national
In the 1990s, the country’s polity was divided by secular versus pseudo secular faultlines; now, another divide, and frankly far more insidious, is sought to be created between ‘national’...
One year of Kejriwal govt
A few years ago, I was sitting next to Manohar Parrikar on a flight. The defence minister was then Goa chief minister and was travelling economy, dressed in trademark...