America’s learning curve

Sunday 16 November '08

Barack Obama’s stunning victory in the US presidential elections has been hailed by almost all sections of Indian society...

What the world expects from Obama

Sunday 9 November '08

Barack Obama’s victory in the US presidential election has been greeted with extrordinary excitement and elation in the global media, including in the Indian media. It is not often that the outcome of an election in a foreign country gets covered in the Indian press with eight-column banner headlines.

Ignoring the Assam alarm

Sunday 2 November '08

What happened in Assam on Thursday is more than a wake-up call for India. It is a warning for a calamitous development in the making.

Fixing our nonfunctional Parliament

Sunday 26 October '08

To democracy lovers across the country, the most disappointing news is one that says, “Parliament was disrupted and adjourned today”.

Importing a ‘Made-in-America’ crisis

Sunday 19 October '08

Does this figure—10,329,969,366,304—make any sense to you? In school physics, we learnt that such large numbers are usually associated with the distance between one planet and another.

Conversations with foreign-funded charity

Sunday 12 October '08

Has the time come for the Government to set up a National Commission to investigate religious conversions in India?

Debating the right to convert

Sunday 5 October '08

Churches vandalised. Innocent Christians attacked. This recent spurt in communal violence cannot be condoned or justified by any right-thinking Indian.

Weaknesses of the Hindu heart and mind

Sunday 28 September '08

Those Hindus who are sincerely striving to strengthen Hindu-Muslim amity would do well to study the thoughts of Sri Aurobindo.

For Indian Muslims, a time to introspect

Sunday 21 September '08

India is passing through difficult times. Indeed, through dangerous times.

Of Gandhi and the God Particle

Sunday 14 September '08

No other recent event from the world of science has caught the imagination of ordinary people around the world as the Large Hadron Collider experiment that physicists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research near Geneva began on September 10.

Circumscribing nuclear sovereignty

Sunday 7 September '08

The morning after the UPA Government won the trust vote in Parliament in a fraudulent manner by enacting the “cash-for-votes” scandal on July 22, the streets of Delhi were full of banners hailing the Congress president and the Prime Minister for their “historic” achievement.

Lessons from Beijing and Bundelkhand

Sunday 31 August '08

A successful Indian businessman—indeed, one of the most successful in the telecom sector—had this to say after his return from Beijing, where he had gone to watch the Olympics.

In Mumbai, a tragedy and a song of despair

Sunday 24 August '08

Last week, tragedy struck the family of a dear Muslim friend of mine in Mumbai. His family, along with two others belonging to his uncles, had been living for nearly a hundred years in a two-storeyed building in what is almost entirely a Muslim locality near Byculla.

Amarnath and Congress legacy in J&K

Sunday 17 August '08

Gen (retd) S K Sinha, who until recently served as the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir, is being blamed for the controversy surrounding the Amarnath Yatra.

Solzhenitsyn, lies and videotape

Sunday 10 August '08

Last Sunday, the world lost one of its best known literary figures when Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel laureate Russian writer, died in Moscow.

MPs on sale

Sunday 3 August '08

If there is a hung Parliament next time and a coalition government whose survival hangs by a thread, do not be surprised if New Delhi becomes a bigger bazaar of horses than it was when Dr Manmohan Singh won the vote of confidence on July 22.

"Where is the proof?" asked the PM

Sunday 27 July '08

Polluting Parliamentary Democracy. That was the title of my column last week, in which I had written: “We do not know what is going to happen in the Lok Sabha on July 22.

Polluting parliamentary democracy

Sunday 20 July '08

When the Prime Minister of India commits himself to something publicly, the nation expects him to abide by it. Let us therefore see how Dr Manmohan Singh has fared on the principle of ‘prime ministerial accountability’.

From ‘Lal Salaam’ to ‘Dalal Salaam’

Sunday 13 July '08

SMS has many uses. In a politically charged atmosphere, such as the one that obtains in Delhi now, a wordsmith can use this tool to reach millions of people with his smart take on the events.

A poser to President Pratibha Patil

Sunday 6 July '08

Mahamahim Rashtrapati Smt Pratibha Patil ji, At the outset, permit me to express my genuine appreciation of an outstanding speech you delivered recently on the ills afflicting our judicial system.

Best time to de-communalise politics

Sunday 29 June '08

Should Indian Muslims oppose the Indo-US nuclear deal just because it involves America, the presumed “enemy of Muslims worldwide”?

Applying "posterity test" to Vajpayee and Singh

Sunday 22 June '08

Veerappa Moily, who heads the Congress party’s media department, on Thursday invoked “posterity’s judgment” to defend the suicidal course of action that the beleaguered UPA Government is contemplating on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

When Sonia scuttled a PM-CM conclave at Infosys

Sunday 15 June '08

Smooth relationship between the Prime Minister and chief ministers of states, including those ruled by opposition parties, is an important requirement for India’s democracy, development, and Constitutional order.

PM’s empty call for political consensus

Sunday 8 June '08

‘Political consensus’ is not a phrase that appears often in Dr. Manmohan Singh’s pronouncements, nor has its pursuit become the hallmark of his prime ministerial record so far.

Karnataka lessons for Congress and BJP

Sunday 1 June '08

There is something to be said about dedication, determination, discipline and commitment in politics...