Ladakh “Modi’s wake up call from China”
When a column becomes a video blog.. why China is a reality check for the Modi brand of ‘personality centric’ diplomacy
Enter the Dragon: Ladakh Exposes Limits of Modi’s China Outreach
Of the many ‘achievements’ of prime minister Narendra Modi that his supporters like to routinely flaunt, this is a statistical record that may haunt the Modi army of bhakts...
Covid-19: Where a new India is born
Since a prolonged lockdown offers an opportunity for the creative juices to flow, allow me a little bit of poetic licence this week to adapt the famous poem of...
Dark side of Gujarat Model
The much-trumpeted ‘Gujarat model’ is in a mess in corona times. Consider the following: Not only does Gujarat have amongst the highest number of corona virus cases in the...
The Babus Have Taken Over Corona Fight
The classic BBC television sitcom, Yes Minister, superbly captures the intriguing relationship between politician and bureaucrat. In one memorable sequence, Sir Humphrey Appleby, tells his minister James Hacker, “You...
No Islamophobia Please in Corona Times
“Hey, news television seems to have finally broken out of the Hindu-Muslim mindset!” I exulted to a colleague soon after the lockdown was announced last month. As news channels...
Compassion with Coercion: Leadership in age of corona
It is perhaps a less known fact that Narendra Modi’s political career was dramatically transformed by a natural disaster. The alleged mishandling of relief operations during the 2001 Kutch...
The Corona Challenge is about Team India not Brand Modi
In the build up to the 2019 general elections, the BJP’s most potent campaign plank was to pose a direct question: ‘Modi versus who?’. By foregrounding the leadership issue,...