The Dauphin and the Figurehead
Timing is everything, and with a number of state elections soon, leading to the general election next year, cynicism and opportunism are manifest. The Congress-led…
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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…
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…
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…
The Bhajan Bludgeon
The Sprawling city that Charles-Edouard le Corbusier had designed for bureaucrats and retired people looked like an army encampment girding up for an enemy onslaught.…
Taken For A Ride
No point of no return was so final as the one Charan Singh and Devi Lal reached on July 21. The crusty Jat leaders have…
Jaat Kahan Ho
It is Useful to remind ourselves about how infinitesimal we are in the cosmic order. As we methodically destroy our planet, it is unlikely we…
Waterless World
Time was when ‘Glacial Speed’ used to mean ‘very, very slowly’. That has changed forever. We know that our planet is warming. New research shows…
Off the Blocks
For the second time in five years, I was struck by how apposite Rud-yard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ is in relation to Narendra Modi. At one…