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Modi’s India: Justified Hopes, Unjustified Fears
GOH CHOK TONG as Prime Minister of Singapore in the mid-1990s was the author of a ‘mild India fever’ that gripped the island-country and led to the first substantial economic engagement between the two...
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PV Narasimha Rao: The Saga of the Southerner
AT OUR VERY LAST meeting, PV Narasimha Rao asked me for an exhaustive note on the Babri Masjid controversy. “Never mind how critical, just put down all you knew and thought. I want your own views.” He...
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The inside Story of How I Lost the Race for the UN Secretary-General's Job in...
THE NEWS THAT the United Nations Security Council has elected the world body’s ninth Secretary-General, the former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres, has put an end to the mounting anxiety...
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The Bard and the Budget
THE PRESENTATION OF the Budget is a day of spectacle and tradition. It begins with cameramen and journalists pursuing a man with a leather briefcase as though he might trip and spill its content. It is...
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The Politics of Growth Data
UNTIL SOME YEARS ago, economic growth statistics were a boring matter. A sleepy government department would release them on pre-set dates, there would be some commentary on the op-ed pages of...
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Vipin Narang, Political Scientist
He seems to love triggering debates, like the one he did over India’s nuclear doctrine recently. This MIT professor said India would abandon its no-first use stance on nuclear weapons if threatened by...
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The Raja Who Cared Too Much
‘STEAL A LITTLE and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king,’ rasps Bob Dylan in one of his most political songs. It could serve as the caller tune of India’s former Telecom Minister...
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Indraprastha
AS A PEOPLE, we Hindus are deeply religious—so religious that shades of hard or soft Hindutva have even come to intrude into our politics. But our collective faith in a multitude of gods and goddesses...
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The Accidental Prime Minister Movie Review
This is a movie told from the perspective of a voyeur. The omnipresent narrator of the film, Sanjaya Baru, hovers around the PMO like a chortling vulture, flapping his wings as he moves from perch to...
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Guardians of Democracy
I PROPOSE TO FOCUS on the crucial issue of the wholesome functioning of the Election Commission that is in many ways critical to future development. There are two main issues involved here. The first...
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