Civil War

Union Home Minister Prakash Chand Sethi has elevated the art of governance to a fine degree of pettifoggery. Political interference in the bureaucracy is not…

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The Big Squeeze

Turkmenistan’s “President for Life” Saparmurat Niyazov erected a 50-ft gold-plated statue of himself in the centre of the capital Ashgabat, eight years before he gave…

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New Business Families

“If a thousand suns were to rise in the heavens at the same time, the blaze of their light would resemble a little the supreme…

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Bureaucracy-The Power that be

All private secretaries to Union ministers are equal, but S.R. Bhatia is more equal. Bhatia is the private secretary to Prakash Chand Sethi, the Union…

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Friend in Need

The Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (RSS) is everybody’s favourite bugbear. So perhaps it was inevitable that it would be accused of having a hand in the…

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ON COARSE

As we prepare to vote, lots of loose talk lies ahead If you believe in the theory of evolution, as I do, then you will…

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Jaat Kahan Ho

Some day extraterrestrials will thrill to Raag Bhairavi in outer space   Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill…

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Waterless World

How melting Himalayan glaciers and Chennai’s dry taps are connected Time was when ‘Glacial Speed’ used to mean ‘very, very slowly’. That has changed forever.…

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