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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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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Anna Data

Our government owns one of the world’s biggest databases. What does it mean? Annadata means “Bestower of food” – a synonym for god. In some…

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