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The first big election verdict of 2023 has been delivered and here are my twelve takeaways.

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Thackeray mukt Shiv Sena.. as the title of this week’s video blog suggests, one of the country’s most enduring regional forces is facing a major existential crisis. The party set up by Bal Thackersy in 1966 now faces the real prospect of existing without its first family at the helm. Government gone, party gone, now symbol gone. So far the focus has been on the battle between Uddhav Thackeray and family on one side and Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis on the other . But these are all pawns in this political chess game: the real grandmaster is Amit Shah.. that’s right, this entire attempt to finish the Thackerays is the brainchild of the Union home minister.

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A few days ago when I heard the BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia attack the BBC as a ‘Bhrasht, Bakwas Corporation’ I was a bit taken aback. Not because I expected any better from Mr Bhatia: he is after all a rough talking spokesperson of a political party which is at ‘war’ with the BBC and all is fair in war and politics. And yet, for many in my generation, the BBC was and is the original gold standard of journalism.

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Long before Gautam Adani, there was Dhirubhai Ambani. The Reliance Industries founder was targeted for building his business empire courtesy his alleged proximity to the Congress government in the 1980s. Leading the anti-Reliance charge was former prime minister VP Singh who didn’t hide his disdain for big business. In 1990, in the midst of this high stakes Singh versus Ambani battle, south Mumbai Congress MP, Murli Deora organized a private dinner for Dhirubhai with a few journalists and Mumbai’s movers and shakers. “I don’t know what my party will say but I will stand by my friend Dhirubhai through good times and bad,” he told the elite gathering. Deora and Ambani had worked in the yarn trading business together and their friendship was built around a long-standing mutual trust.

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one name has dominated the headlines.. this time for all the wrong reasons. Gautam Adani, who till only a few days ago, was India’s richest businessman and the world’s third richest, has not only found his share value wealth dip dramatically.. but suddenly finds himself at the heart of a political tangle that is echoing in parliament and beyond. Ever since a report from the US investment research firm, Hindenburg Research, accused the Adani group of several financial wrongdoings from stock manipulation to fake accounting to money laundering through shell companies, the Adanis are struggling to cope with the fallout.

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A number of people have asked me a question: what is your view on the recent BBC documentary on the 2002 Gujarat violence. As someone who spent days, weeks, months, years, tracking the violence and its aftermath, I honestly have been reluctant to give typical soundbite casual throwaway opinion. Gujarat 2002 is a multi-layered story, the BBC documentary only un-peels one part of that complex story , leaving much unspoken and unsaid.

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Indias’s top Olympian wrestlers, many of them from India’s sporting cradle of Haryana, hitting the street protesting against the wrestling federation chief, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a six time BJP MP, accusing him of sexual harassment and worse. Now, we have often been fed on stories of sports federation bosses behaving in an autocratic manner but very rarely have the athletes chosen to go public in such a dramatic manner. That they have put their careers on the line as a result should make us realize the enormity of what they have done: rebelling in any form against officials in Indian sport is fraught with risk and it takes courage to speak up.

#straightbatwithrajdeep #rajdeepsardesai #tamilnews #dmk #rnravi

A defining image this week has been a Governor of a state walking out of the state assembly while a resolution is being read out against him by the chief minister. What happened in Tamil Nadu this week is deplorable. And is dangerous for a federal constitutional democracy. I will not get into the blame game of the events that led to the walk out but I will say this: a Governor who goes to the extent of making politically loaded statements like calling for a change in the name of Tamil Nadu, needs to seriously introspect. RN ravi is a retired bureaucrat, a police officer who served with distinction in IB and CBI and also in insurgency affected states. Surely someone like him should have realised the limits to the powers of a Governor. A Governor cannot be a political player but sadly that’s exactly what Governor Ravi has become: he has on crucial bills, has been making statements against the ruling DMK, and even deviated from the prepared text of the prepared text of the speech in the assembly.

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