Columns

August 24, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Can BJP’s 3-pronged attack win in 2024?

With an astute political communicator such as Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, the message often lies in deliberate wordplay. Which is why the use of the word parivarjan (family...

August 11, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Ten lessons from no-confidence motion debate

With the three day no-confidence motion in Parliament completed, the bugle for the 2024 general elections has been sounded. This no-confidence motion was never about the numbers but a...

July 27, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

End the whataboutery around Manipur crisis

In the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots, the standard Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) response during any television debate was, “What about 1984?” Framing the issue of communal violence...

July 14, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

In Maharashtra battle, Pawar is down but not out, yet

When Sharad Pawar first became Maharashtra chief minister (CM) in 1978, Morarji Desai was the country’s Prime Minister (PM), Rajiv Gandhi was still an Indian Airlines pilot, Narendra Modi...

June 29, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Manipur requires an urgent healing touch

May 3 is a day that journalist Hoihnu Hauzel and her family will never forget. That fateful night, an armed group entered a residential colony in Imphal and burned...

June 16, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Country above IPL: What BCCI must do to help Indian cricket

Yes, I am tired and need a break, but my franchise won’t let me take one,” a leading Indian cricketer confessed, slap bang in the middle of this year’s...

June 1, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Break the silence on the wrestlers’ protest

In a hyper-partisan age where opinion is often shaped by WhatsApp forwards, India’s protesting wrestlers have discovered how fickle public adulation can be. Those who feted our medal-winning wrestlers,...

May 18, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

The K’taka verdict can worry the BJP

Are you sure we are winning so comfortably?” the senior Congress leader’s voice on the phone sounded anxious. It was the night before counting day in Karnataka where an...

May 4, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Will the double-engine rhetoric work in Karnataka?

Double-engine sarkar (government) is a term that has steadily crept into the political lexicon in the last nine years, since Narendra Modi became prime minister (PM). The double-engine rhetoric...

April 20, 2023
Rajdeep Sardesai
Columns

Decoding UP’s nexus of crime and politics

In Uttar Pradesh (UP)’s notorious gang wars, even crime is seen through the prism of caste and community. This is why the sharply polarised reactions to the killing of...