April, wrote TS Eliot, is the cruellest month. Joe D’Cruz should know all about it. Till just the other day Sahitya Akademi winner D’Cruz, 51, was cruising along for the launch of the English edition of his first Tamil n
"Jaat na puchho sadhu ki (Do not ask the caste of the holy people)." This conventional wisdom has been turned on its head in the twin cities of Mathura-Vrindavan where innumerable stories surrounding Lord Krishna and his consorts weave a
Something bizarre happened earlier this year at IIT Madras. Ceiling fans and mixer-grinders, among others, were being distributed on the campus. Many staff members went “eagerly” to receive their share, according to Dr Sudarsan Padmana
Gangauli in Ghazipur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh is not just another village. Nearly 60 km from the district headquarters, this village on the banks of the Ganga owes its fame to the novelist Rahi Masoom Raza and his masterpiece Aadha Gaon (
Kashinath Singh, who might well be the most popular Hindi author of last decade, reminisces a time when Banaras was a garh – bastion – of the Left. It’s a late-March afternoon and I and historian Patrick French are
AAP has alleged that senior Congress leader Gurudas Kamat has indulged in corrupt electoral practices as per Section 123, subsection 4 of Representation of People Act, 1951 and 171G, 171H of Indian Penal Code. The party has lodged complaints again
Believe it or not, government websites in India are less vulnerable to `Heartbleed` bug. No, not because these websites have world’s best internet security protocols but because of the sluggish approach of government departments in the count
When I decided to book my Patna-Delhi return ticket for April 17 I never realised I was in for a shocker. “How will you reach airport? No three-wheeler or taxi will be available tomorrow, at least till 6 PM,” warned the senior journali
Dear diary, Got up in the morning again. I do, these days. Get up in the morning, that is. Gone are the times when I was the IPL boss and it was part of the brief to attend late-night parties and wake up late. Alas... (Note to self:
Good days are round the corner, says one of the BJP advertisements. Arundhati Roy, of course, disagrees. Her view? “I think that we are poised in a momentous and slightly dangerous space.” In an interview with Siddhartha Deb fo
Justification for Change I am fortunate to have witnessed Dr. Dinesh Singh twice justifying the four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) course, especially defending the introduction of Foundation Course papers and on that
As people in 13 states go to the polling booth today (April 17), the large turnout of voters in all the phases, especially in crucial states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, indicates the intensity of the 2014 electoral battle. If this trend of high vo
The writing on the wall is pretty clear. Election in Tamil Nadu has narrowed down to AIADMK, DMK and BJP, despite surplus of candidates in all the 39 constituencies in the state. Going for Congress, which is politically isolated in Tamil Nadu, is
Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was easily one of the most maligned administrators in the world in the wake of post-Godhra riots in 2002. He was publicly ticked off by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who reminded Modi of the need to
After a bit of a showdown with former Fed chief Ben Bernanke and a few other central bank governors at a conference in Washington, RBI governor Raghuram Rajan could well be headed for some fireworks back home. While the grapevine is abuzz
In early February this year, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi made subtle overtures to the Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee while addressing a huge rally in the brigade parade grounds in Kolkata. In his address, Modi
Narendra Modi’s assertion that he called on his “good friend” Rajinikanth on April 13 to wish him on the occasion of Tamil new year, which fell on the following day, is cutting little ice with people in Channi, especially fans of
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership in Karnataka should have been sitting pretty in this Lok Sabha election, considering it has a substantial base that gave the party a chance to rule the state for five years till 2013. Karnataka was looke
Since inception, Aadhaar’s foundation has been shaky. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has been functioning on an executive fiat, without parliamentary ratification. When the government first came up with a bill on the UI
Legend has it that Sanjaya Baru’s mom wanted her son to be a journalist. So what better than to name him ‘Sanjay-a’ – inspired by the Original Reporter in Vyas’s Mahabharata! It doesn’t really matter, de
