The moment you enter Patna, there is a sense of relief since you have left Siwan after a four-hour spell of interacting with people about the adventures of the late gangster-politician… Read full story

1974 was a very turbulent year for India. Repeated crop failures had created near famine-like conditions as the food shortage crisis worsened. In a previous column… Read full story

For India, the Pakistan economy is so insignificant and irrelevant that hardly anyone will notice if there is no trade between them. That distressingly familiar narrative is cropping up again… Read full story

It was the first in a series of terror attacks targeting innocent civilians in urban centres that caused mayhem and misery in India for 20 long and uninterrupted years. So sustained… Read full story

Clichés are sometimes useful in explaining things. The saying that reality usually lies between two extreme viewpoints is apt for describing the brouhaha raised by the latest International Labour… Read full story

How a decade is enough to dissolve all the pomp and glory. The author was here more than a decade ago when there was an air of festivity, celebration, and an unbridled display of political and muscle power. Folks were…

Political allegiances are changing in UP, clearly in favour of BJP and Modi. But the Ram temple seems to have also deepened the fault lines of polarisation. Last month in Ayodhya, I witnessed a surge of… Read full story

The author drove back from Shimla just as voting inside the assembly was about to take place to elect a Rajya Sabha MP from Himachal Pradesh. Quite a few people the author met in the state between 25 and 27

It would be three more years before all Nehruvian idealism and illusions were smashed and pulverised into smithereens. It was about ten years after Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had formally warned Jawaharlal Nehru… Read full story

Apart from a few die-hard supporters here and there, the author found no enthusiasm among ordinary folks for the BJP. Forget Ayodhya, the contrast with even Assam and North Bengal was starkly visible… Read full story