Sonia Gandhi has wisely refrained from fielding daughter, Priyanka Vadra, against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow. Notwithstanding the carefully crafted media hype, Priyanka as political piece the resistance strains credulity. For the past several years, her public profile consists exclusively of the parties, fashion shows and cultural events … Read More
For most political analysts and social scientists, Bellary is simply the constituency where an uncharacteristically aggressive BJP hopes to make Sonia Gandhi eat humble pie. Certainly Sushma Swaraj’s wholesome Hindu appeal and passionate declamation of the Congress president’s non-native origins have sufficiently underscored her ‘outsider’ status to cause profound unease … Read More
When the first BJP-led coalition was sworn-in last year, Congressmen proposed a funny though inane cliché – that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the ‘right man in the wrong party’. The fact that it sounded witty and no doubt riled the Sangh parivar must have lent it legitimacy in … Read More
The much-heralded Age of Adolescents has finally dawned. But it is not likely to usher in a brave new world because, notwithstanding the rhetoric, the grim reality is that though young people today constitute the largest-ever segment of the world population, they are not being truly empowered to lead their … Read More
We are suddenly in a new, multi-polar world. And India is one of its major pillars. Many of us may find this hard to believe. But those who are beginning to realise that it is indeed so, are also bemused at the enormity of it all. How did such an … Read More
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Rashtrapati Bhavan has leaked, or caused to be leaked, the information that President K.R. Narayanan sent a written communication to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee two weeks ago, asking him to convene a Rajya Sabha session to discuss the Kargil situation. Given … Read More
There is a disturbing trend in recent years for state-funded institutions to become controversial on account of being controlled by politicians or bureaucrats, often both. If there was Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, there was the Indian Council of Cultural Relations in Delhi. And now, tenaciously hogging the limelight, is the … Read More
Notwithstanding its pleasant showing in coastal Goa, Congress would do well to pay careful attention to Sharad Pawar’s forthcoming convention in Mumbai on June 10. Although he has scrupulously shunned high rhetoric, Pawar has effectively punctured the party in this critical state, taking over the bulk of the Congress Legislature … Read More
Astride a high horse, straddling the low moral ground, Sonia Gandhi has achieved the grail of tin-pot tyrants. As the sun sets today, she will have elected a new party. Not yet a new people. But not a bad beginning. So where will she go from here? The wonderful thing … Read More
Ever since an envious, over-ambitious Sonia Gandhi yanked Atal Bihari Vajpayee out of South Block for the offense of doing a fairly credible job, the nation has been subjected to intense polemics on the pedigree of our politicians and their right to rule. As is natural in the circumstances, the … Read More
