The party’s over in Uttar Pradesh
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. How else does one explain the antics of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, the Uttar…
India’s polarising powder keg
A spectre of war now hovers over South Asia – and not only because of tanks on the Line of Control. In the wake of the April 22 terror ambush…
Pythagoras and the holy dip
RELIGIOUS beliefs and science have coexisted for centuries. Science and superstition can also find a way to trudge along together. A brilliant scientist may not tread the path that has…
To hold each other’s flag
WHILE India and Pakistan can and do unfurl their flags in distant territories — say, in a cricket stadium in Sharjah or when they secure a medal at the Olympics,…
NDA, not BJP
RESULTS of the Indian general election from this past week took most observers by surprise. A comfortable return to power for the BJP was the dominant analytical consensus prior to…
Change his name if BJP wins
THERE is a perceptible voter fatigue against divisive planks. That’s encouraging news coming in for Indian democracy, which braces for a seven-stage general election starting Friday. The last round of voting is…
Modi won’t go down sans a fight
MOST neutral observers are sanguine that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is winning a third term. Let’s put it this way, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that Mr Modi is losing…
The crooked timber of Modi’s India
WHEN Parakala Prabhakar published his essays in April last year in a book titled The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis, one ignored it on suspicion…
Fable of the bicycle and a plane
THE inability to accept defeat with grace comes from an authoritarian streak found in enfeebled democracies. Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, for example, are peas in a pod in this…
Critical days for Modi and rivals
THE underplayed defeat for his government by 32 seats in the parliamentary elections, with a whopping loss of 63 BJP MPs from the previous tally, may have reined in Prime…
