Nothing is more interesting in the business of news or entertainment than getting Mamata Banerjee in full flow. No amount of nasal lectures on development, faux-aggression on women’s empowerment, or a different sort of nasal rage against cor
From tackling a sad growth rate and ever-rising inflation to a depressed business environment, Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, has been portrayed as the one-stop solution to all the economic woes the country faces after
Punjab is a unique state in its own way and has its own set of problems. And these problems were never part of the poll manifestos of the traditional parties till the last election. Usually seen as politically inactive even d
Fifty-eight years after Winston Churchill made the famous Iron Curtain speech on March 5, 1946, Russia ‘annexed’ Crimea on March 8, 2014. Churchill, known also for his witticisms, had described Russia thus in a 1939 BBC broadcast: &ldq
The 150-year-old government-run India Post is the world’s largest postal network with over 1,55,000 post offices across the country. It is still widely in use, despite the increasing penetration of internet and mobile phones in the communica
Book review: A Strange Kind of Paradise: India Through Foreign Eyes: Sam Miller (Interview): Penguin India, 440 pages, Rs 599
That old cliché – you either love or hate him – applies to many (dare we say most) politicians. More so for Narendra Modi, the Gujarat chief minister and now seen by many as India’s next prime minister. Chang
Only the most ardent of fans would recognise Deepak Adhikari even in West Bengal. Unless, of course, you add a.k.a. Dev. These days, Adhikari, among the biggest stars reigning over Bengali cinema, is also known by another acronym, this one within
RS Sharma, an IAS officer of 1978 batch, Chief Secretary, Jharkhand will take over the charge of secretary at the department of electronics and information technology (DeitY). He will replace J Satyanarayana, who is retiring on
Today when I speak to people about their voting preferences, the usual answer I get is "Even though I like party `C` I will vote for party `A` to ensure that party `B` stays out of power. When I ask them what if party `C` or any other party y
To move around in Benaras (also known as Varanasi), it is better to let go off the four-wheeler. And if you are anywhere near the congested markets and by lanes along the Ganga ghats, the only advisable mode of transport is by foot.
Five months after the search for a thousand tonnes of gold, Daundiya Kheda village in Unnao, the small hamlet rumoured to be concealing the world’s greatest treasure, remains a paradox. The village is connected to the city through roads
Mahatma Gandhi once said “my life is my message”. This formulation implied that there must not be duplicity in public and private life. A public life should be transparent and crystal clear, not opaque. In following this principle Gand
All the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and one seat of Puducherry went to polls today. We spoke to some citizens, who came to cast their vote, about the NOTA option or None of the above option wherein people can refuse to vote for any candidate, and here`
On Thursday the city of Varanasi came to a complete standstill. And if there was one thing that could move or, say, crawl amidst a tsunami of people on the roads, it was the convoy of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
In Amethi, there is no palpable ‘Modi wave’ OR ‘BJP lehar’. Nor do the voters here identify themselves much with the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) anti-corruption pitch. In contrast, the Gandhi family still e
As a student of physics in the Gorakhpur university, BJP president Rajnath Singh must have learnt Newton`s Laws by rote. But as a practitioner of realpolitik, he would certainly have wished to reformulate the law on action and reaction.
Amartya Sen finds Indian politics a “disappointing spectacle”. In an interview with the Belgian news site Mondiaal Nieuws this mon
As one drives down Mathura to Etah and Etawah, one sees a vast expanse of treacherous and arid geography falling alongside the Yamuna and Chambal rivers that is regarded as the land of perpetual war. Mythologies and histories have shaped the psych
Will India return to the higher economic growth trajectory? Will Modi (if he becomes the PM) and his supposedly decisive administrative style boost the manufacturing sector and create jobs that a mammoth number of youngsters entering the economy w
