The long road to justice
The Special Investigation Team tasked by the Supreme Court of India to enquire into the communal violence that shook Gujarat eight years ago has summoned Chief Minister Narendra Modi to appear before it for questioning on March 21. The summons is pursuant to a petition filed in the court by Zakia Jaffrey, widow of the former Congress Member of [...]
Fresh Tune
BJP presidents are not known for singing in public. They are better known for their serious demeanour and sounding off on lofty matters such as Hindutva and cultural nationalism. So, it was a welcome change to see the new president, the low-profile Nitin Gadkari, humming a tune from Anand, a popular 1970s movie, when he was on stage during the [...]
For he’s a jolly good fellow
Social Justice Minister Mukul Wasnik was taken by surprise at a seminar on disability at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi on Friday. Two disabled students asked him to extend the Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship for SC/STs to the disabled. Even as Wasnik was saying that he would consider the proposal, a professor announced that he was extending [...]
PR Dubhashi: Market Economy And The Supply Constraint
THE Prime Minister, his finance minister and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission appear to be obsessed with growth figures. While pulses, potatoes, vegetables and sugar are becoming more and more expensive, Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr Pranab Mukherjee and Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia are happy in the thought that the country had registered a 7 [...]
Two Cheers
Instances of the Congress and BJP agreeing on anything are all too rare. That's why the praise heaped by BJP chief ministers, including Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, on the Congress-led UPA government is welcome. Home minister P C Chidambaram as well as the Union home secretary both came in for a pat on the back from BJP CMs for their handling of [...]
Vidya Subrahmaniam: Cracks in Hindutva brotherhood
Just when one thought it could not get any worse, it has. Uddhav Thackeray’s “Italian mummy-Italian Rajputra” tirade against Rahul Gandhi and his unceasing threats to Shah Rukh Khan mark a new low in the conduct of a party that has practised violence as if it was a sacred credo. While the Shiv Sena’s young leader bellows and thunders, [...]
It’s just not Mumbai anymore
Mumbai is delightfully different. At Davos, Mukesh Ambani says that Mumbai is for everyone, while Anil Ambani had earlier declared his admiration for Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, which wants to keep certain people out on pain of death. Rahul Gandhi chimes in and is threatened by the Shiv Sena which, in the meantime, has been told off by the national [...]
Actions tweet louder
If the twitterati were India’s voting class, then Shashi Tharoor would be the Supreme Leader. A few weeks ago, when Tharoor’s tweet on the government’s visa policies generated much fuss among his ministerial colleagues, I had jocularly tweeted, “Maybe, Tharoor should quit politics and join journalism. He would have greater freedom as an [...]
Enclave and the Empire
MUCH has been written and seemingly done for the Indian education system in recent months. The HRD minister, Kapil Sibal, has brought discussion on education out of the closet and from the confines of academia into our drawing rooms. I, therefore, speak as a common middle class senior citizen with no more than a layman’s perspective. All [...]