Youthful politics please
Images of DMK chief M Karunanidhi campaigning in a wheel-chair symbolises the dichotomy of India being the youngest country in the world while its politicians remain elderly. Little wonder that the...
View ArticleFor birthday bash, PM Modi must seize the economic day
It says something for the Congress party that Sonia Gandhi has been its president for nearly 18 years, a longer unbroken stretch than anybody in the family she married into, going back to Motilal...
View ArticleAdvice for Azam Khan: Leave our sages alone
At a time when the attention of entire country was on BJP and Congress sparring over the Rs 3600 crore Agusta Westland helicopter deal in Parliament, motor-mouth Azam Khan still managed to attract...
View ArticleThe alcoholic mammaries of the welfare state
Upamanyu Chatterjee once wrote a book titled The Mammaries of the Welfare State. If he visited Tamil Nadu today, he would be tempted to write another called The Alcoholic Mammaries of Tamil Nadu’s...
View ArticleLeading UP may bring out the leader in Rahul
Rahul Gandhi must be projected as the future Uttar Pradesh chief minister, new Congress strategist Prashant Kishor has reportedly advised. Not an original idea. Before the 2012 UP elections there was a...
View ArticleAgusta deal: Government yet to add any information not in public domain
By Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay One of the principle slogans that catapulted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the coveted position was the imaginative one liner — na khaoonga, na khaane doonga (Neither shall I...
View ArticleUP’s Poster Wars: Yogi Adityanath joins the fray
He is the undisputed Hindutva poster boy in eastern Uttar Pradesh, a classic example of religion and politics blending in the holy town of Gorakhpur. The mahant of the famous Gorakhnath temple- Yogi...
View ArticleIs Modi government getting Nepal policy wrong?
Recent events with Nepal should worry New Delhi. First, the visit of Nepal’s first woman president, Bidhya Devi Bhandari, to India was cancelled just 72 hours before she was to arrive. Then reports...
View ArticleUttarakhand: End of political deadlock for now
Congress leader Harish Rawat is all set to return as chief minister of Uttarakhand. The Centre has told the Supreme Court that it will revoke President’s Rule in the hill state as there is no...
View ArticleNarendra Modi’s Somalia Self-Goal
Prime Minister Modi did his party a major disservice when he compared Kerala to the failed state of Somalia. It just served to show that for all his penchant for circumnavigating the globe, Modi...
View ArticleTamil Nadu Politics: The endless wait for MK Stalin
For a political leader nearing a half-century in public life, it must be hard to come to terms with reality that he is still not considered chief minister material in Tamil Nadu. MK Stalin made...
View ArticleNitish Kumar in Varanasi: The search for Narendra Modi’s alternative
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Varanasi visit could be a small but significant step in the search for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s alternative at the national level. So when Kumar talks about...
View ArticlePoster Wars in UP: Nitish Kumar depicted as Arjun
We all grew up in a world watching Nitish as Krishna in the iconic television serial Mahabharat on the national broadcaster Doordarshan in the late eighties. That was Nitish Bhardwaj who went on to...
View ArticleAgusta may show a serious fault in our defence procurement system
By Pranab Dhal Samanta Can defence procurement be made scam-proof ? Successive governments have asked this question, even pursued it earnestly till the point it emerged that there exists a whole...
View ArticleDonald Trump, an exceptional man indeed
By Sandip Roy Just when I thought the American presidential carnival could not get any weirder, it has. As usual, it’s thanks to Donald Trump. But for a change, it’s not about anything Trump has...
View ArticleAmerica’s got (this) talent
By Anuvab Pal You don’t often get a proper mad politician who just says things an old drunk man in a rural fishing village says, blaming the world because he isn’t happy with the catch...
View ArticleMalegaon shows rot in criminal justice system
The tale of the investigation into the September 29, 2008, blasts in Malegaon, Maharashtra, which killed seven, is itself a curious — if not cruel — story. It was among the first attacks to be...
View ArticleAgusta political slugfest pretends 2014 never happened
We are in the middle of 2016 but it doesn’t seem so. The year could well be 2013, 2012 or 2011 when accusations would be tossed every day at politicians, denials would spring quickly, news...
View ArticleAmar Singh and Beni Prasad Verma’s nomination shows Mulayam Singh Yadav is in...
The announcement of Amar Singh and Beni Prasad Verma as nominees for Rajya Sabha doesn’t come as a surprise to those who have been following the Samajwadi Party (SP) over the years. The inclusion of...
View ArticleDMK-Congress alliance in TN and the CPM-led Left Democratic Front in Kerala...
Exit poll predictions haven’t really told the poll story right, at least, in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The relative stability and predictability of the assembly elections in these states have been deeply...
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