Let’s keep our powder dry
“If they want peace” said Napoleon Bonaparte to the Russian Czar Alexander, “they should avoid the pinpricks that precede canon balls”. He may as well have been addressing Pakistan and…
The Congress and the ‘middle class’
Rahul Gandhi’s elevation as the Congress Party’s vice-president was an organisational non-event. He was already functioning as its Number Two, and dynastically destined to succeed his mother. The appointment’s significance…
Whatever happens at the border
One step forward, two steps back. That appears to be the norm of the dysfunctional India-Pakistan relationship. You make a little progress, inch by painful inch, dragging yourself up the…
To prevent rape, fight masculinity
One month on, public outrage at the gang rape and barbaric brutalisation of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in Delhi, causing her death, refuses to die down. Among the factors driving…
Jaswant Singh’s premonitions
One can only wonder what it was that drove a man of such erudition as Jaswant Singh tearfully back into the fold of the BJP – from which he had…
The contest for pre-eminence
Margins cannot determine the fate of the text. At the moment, the story of the next elections to Rashtrapati Bhavan is in neither array nor disarray: it is blank, because…
Congress adrift
In a curious surge of counterintuitive energy, the Congress has in the last two years managed to revive the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and either destroy or alienate everyone who…
Gujarat’s right-wing leader poised for premiership bid
Right-wing Indian politician Narendra Modi looks set for a greater role in national politics after winning a third electoral victory to lead the western state of Gujarat Thursday, but not…
Can manly Advani match weakling Manmohan?
The BJP says Manmohan Singh is weak and no match for their strongman Advani.Is that true? Let us examine their qualifications. Born in 1932, Manmohan Singh graduated in economics from…
The meaning of Modi’s victory
With Narendra Milosevic Modi’s third consecutive victory, Gujarat has taken a big step backwards and India has suffered a political setback. The result will raise Modi’s ambition to play a…
