2017 - Sagarika Ghose

May 2, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Blog

Boycott Pakistani Mogambos on TV!

Last night, I was watching a familiar face from Pakistan venting bile on Indian news television: a self styled ‘political-military analyst’ Syed Tariq Pirzada has made it his professional...

April 28, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

AAP and the end of Hope

On the day the exit polls for the Delhi municipal elections were predicting a BJP landslide, AAP spokespersons were in a defiant mood, blaming the EVMs for a looming...

April 15, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Blog

Kashmir: putting Indians first

The reality in Kashmir has always been crazily complex: this isn’t some good guys versus bad guys spaghetti western where the guys with the guns are good, those with...

April 14, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Cow politics: Mahatma’s India vs Bhagwat’s Hindu Rashtra

There are many joys of living in Goa, but its gastronomic pluralism is easily one of the tiny state’s biggest attractions. On the day that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat...

April 10, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

TV news is in a crisis: Chapalgaonkar memorial lecture

Dear friends, members of the Chapalgaonkar family and fellow journalists of Pune, It is a great honour for me to be speaking at the Venkatesh Chapalgaonkar Memorial Lecture here...

March 30, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

When ‘fringe’ becomes Mainstream: Hindu vote bank has arrived

One of the more intriguing narratives being spun after the appointment of Yogi Adityanath as the new Uttar Pradesh chief minister is to liken his rise to Narendra Modi....

March 28, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Blog

Thank god for cricket

There must be a world beyond Yogi Adityanath I keep telling myself. For the last week, television has been in a trance with a politician who we once consciously...

March 19, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Blog

The Rise of the Yogi: the Mask is Off

The first time I met Yogi Adityanath was in his bastion of Gorakhpur ahead of the 1999 general elections. It was only the youthful Yogi’s second parliament election and...

March 17, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Can opposition take on Modi in 2019?

In the aftermath of the 2014 general election debacle, I asked a senior Congressman how his party would now battle the Narendra Modi juggernaut. “Not to worry, we have...

March 13, 2017
Rajdeep Sardesai
Blog

Goa Gone with ‘Money-pur’

So, the BJP is set to form the government in Manipur and Goa, adding two more states to its kitty. In both states the pattern is disturbingly similar: a...