Just after the UP assembly election in 1996, I was among the scores of reporters waiting at Kalyan Singh’s residence, waiting to get the first inkling of the future course of the BJP. The party had secured the maximum seats – 174 out of 425 seats – but was short of the majority mark. Since TV cameras had still not taken over the public space for news coverage, the crowd
Of all offences, it’s the crime of rape that fires public sentiment the most, eliciting an outrage that exceeds the seemingly worst felony of all – murder too. It has probably more to do with the offence and associated gory details staying, even being replayed ruthlessly, in memory with continual mention and recall that compound its severity. It’s this outrage that offsets any
While driving down from Bengaluru to Mysuru, you come across a patch of hillocks near Ram Nagar, a place that provided the backdrop for the all-time hit Bollywood movie, Sholay. This was where villain Gabbar Singh, played by inimitable Amjad Khan, delivered that immortal dialogue, “Kitne aadmi the? (How many people were they?)” The dialogue is better remembered for its style of deli
Dr BR Ambedkar has been one of those rare thinkers, social revolutionaries and outstanding scholars who have earned unparalleled posthumous recognition. With each passing year, more and more social thinkers and political parties are competing to appropriate the iconic figure of Ambedkar. Although he had a much larger world view, Ambedkar’s undelivered lecture to the ‘Jat-Pat Todak M
If political punditry is to be believed, the predictable outcome of the Karnataka election will invariably be a hung house. And this punditry is based on sound logic which is quite convincing for anyone familiar with science of election forecast. If you have any doubt, look at these facts: split Karnataka into four parts and try to analyse the electorate’s beh
Just as Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked up to the museum in Wuhan during his two-day China visit, a smiling president Xi Jinping was waiting to receive him. Xi then gave him a nugget of critical information. No Chinese president has ever accorded reception to a visiting head of the state outside Beijing. “I did it twice for you,” Xi is learnt to have told Modi.
India has been consistently forg ing closer ties with African states since the India-Africa Forum Summit of taneously, there has been notice able emphasis on the eastern and october 2015. Simultaneously southern coastal states of the continent abutting the Indian ocean region. owing to the presence of the Indian diaspora in these countries for more than a century, India has been able to facilit
Maya Kodnani, a BJP leader who was the MLA from Naroda when this locality on the outskirts of Ahmedabad witnessed one of the most gruesome episodes during the Gujarat riots of 2002, was acquitted by the Gujarat High Court on Friday. Her acquittal in the Naroda Patiya massacre case is only a sequel to a series of such exonerations of those named in collective crimes.
Remember Kardashev scale? For the uninitiated, it’s a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement, based on the amount of energy it is able to use for communication. We will get to its unconventional relevance to the big urban questions at the end, but just keep it at the back of your mind and dig it out when we get to it. All serious urba
It’s always lonely at the top. Prime minister Narendra Modi’s marathon townhall event at the Central Hall Westminster, titled ‘Bharat ki Baat, Sab ke Saath’, was nothing but his way of shedding that loneliness, communicating and mingling with people and showing his vulnerable side. “I am one among you and I have all weaknesses that anyone has.&
“Sadak par todti patthar, Dekha maine use Allahabad ke path par (She was breaking stones, I saw her on footpaths of Allahabad)”. This verse by Hindi poet Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’ is not alien to anyone conversant with elementary Hindi literature. Nirala revolutionised Hindi poetry by penning in simple words a complex concept of individualism a
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath can be singularly credited for borrowing the phrase, `thok denge`, from Bollywood flicks and introducing it right in the mainstream governance discourse. The phrase is a Bollywood euphemism for eliminating somebody. Yogi used this expression last year ("Agar aparadh karenge to thok denge (if they commit crime, they will be bumped
Disparate attacks on dalits over the last three years read with the supreme court’s recent ruling switching off the automatic arrest of an accused in an Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Atrocities Act complaint, have had opposition parties and political commentators jump to very facile and specious conclusion: that this is hardly surprising because the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), th
Corporations have a critically important role to play in a nation’s roadmap of development, and it is a fundamental, undisputed fact. Development that is not limited to financial growth alone but one with an enhanced vision, leads to an informed, healthy and progressive society. The industry, along with the state, is an equal partner in this endeavour. In India too, like in the rest of
Death is an inevitable consequence of birth and evokes as much a sense of mystery as it inspires awe and fear. In the Kathopanishad, Nachiketa considers knowledge of death and the beyond as the only truth. The idea of invoking death by choice, or ichchhamaran, is unique to the Indian ethos. But it has taken decades of struggle to legalise the idea of a ‘living will’ (which sets out
The supreme court’s recent ruling on the right of a person to make a ‘living will’ has underlined the inevitable. The petition, filed by registered society Common Cause, was about the right of a person to decide on the chain of events that would determine the future course of treatment should that person become incapable of making such a decision. In the unanimous judgment by
In India, every election is unique in its own way. Each can be called a trendsetter for future politics, although the reality is that an election often resets established political equations. Those who think that the Karnataka Assembly election, to be held on May 12, will set the tone for national politics are bound to be overwhelmed by the next set of political calculations that may emerge fro
For quite some time now there has been a lot of talk and focus of the government on the ease of doing business. Recently, the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 report showcased the progress India has made by making a 30-point jump in its rank. Though there are about a 100 countries performing better than us, yet the improvement is significant. Similar efforts are being made by the states t
What is Narendra Modi’s biggest electoral success during the current term as prime minister? At first blush, most would say the Uttar Pradesh victory. That would be looking at the obvious (UP is the heart of the Hindi heartland) and at mere numbers (it has the maximum Lok Sabha seats). Yes, it was a tough fight, it came past the mid-way mark of his term, and regaining the state with mammo
Like our jails, our correction centres for juvenile offenders are hardly conducive to bringing about positive change. No one will dispute the fact that an underaged criminal, especially if he or she is a first-timer, needs to be given a chance to reform, however heinous the crime. Unfortunately, society’s ideas of justice are so linked to punishing the offender that we do not give a chanc
