The electorate’s unequivocal snub to Ms Sonia Gandhi’s prime ministerial ambitions, witnessed in the sharp decline in the Congress’s all-India tally, is entirely along expected lines, notwithstanding the surprise this seems to have caused amongst dedicated secularists. Reality proved so far from the Congress’s self-prognosis that its claim to be … Read More
The Supreme Court has struck a powerful blow for women’s rights, and above all, for justice, with its recent notice to a convicted rapist asking why his sentence should not be enhanced to life imprisonment. Case law on rape will never be the same again as the impact of this … Read More
Former Lok Sabha Speaker and Nationalist Congress Party leader Purno Sangma has made a rather startling allegation that the Congress president is responsible for the recent attacks on Christians. In an interview to a Shillong newspaper, Sangma said: “Christians were never attacked in India, but people reacted sharply when Sonia … Read More
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
