Indian Politics
The rise of the Ambani brand
With great wealth, should there not be great scrutiny and accountability?
On the 2024 farmers’ protest in India
Thousands of farmers from Punjab and Haryana have taken to the streets again, just over two years after their previous year-long agitation.
The Modi Decade
Dissent is framed as disloyalty, with criticism of government policies labeled “anti-national.”
PROJECT SYNDICATE / India's looming demographic divide
India’s population is expected to grow over the next four decades to approximately 1.7 billion, before plunging to 1.1 billion by 2100.
Can India’s Oldest Party Reinvent Itself?
For the first time in nearly 25 years, Congress will elect a president who is not a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.
India should think beyond the Hindutva agenda
Over the last few years – under the BJP government – India’s religious polarisation has increased in degree and intensity.
India’s caste census and the chimera of data-driven policymaking
Caste census, once again, is the talk of the town—at least in the Indian state of Bihar.
Is a federal party possible?
When former Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that they would not allow the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to return to power, she hinted at joint action on the part of the Opposition. It also means that she does not want Prime Minister Narendra Modi to run for a second term. On its own, the Congress does not have the numbers to pose any threat to the BJP-run government or Modi.
BOTTOM LINE / West Bengal and Assam election results and its impact on Bangladesh
The Election Commission in India needs to be congratulated for conducting a free and fair election in Assam and West Bengal, among others, as no party has alleged any rigging in the outcome of elections. Both Trinomool Congress and BJP did much better than expected in the two states.
Does political unrest have a positive side?
I won't be surprised if the title of the article raises many eyebrows.
AAP's democratic deficit
THE Aam Aadmi Party became the great white hope of Indian democracy in February when it stopped the Modi juggernaut in Delhi with a spectacular election victory.
A new RSS-BJP compact?
IT'S a sad comment on India's mainstream media that it didn't notice the irony of a representative of the Sangh Parivar—a current which inspired Mahatma Gandhi's assassination—being invited to the unveiling of his statue in London.
India opposition MPs march against land law changes
Opposition MPs in India marches to the presidential palace to protest against a controversial land acquisition bill.
Is AAP going Janata way?
WHEN movements convert themselves into political parties they lose their original shape.
Towards emotional integration
POWER makes strange bedfellows. Mufti Mohmmad Sayeed, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir government, has joined hands with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Yet his victory in the state assembly elections primarily has been on the plank that he will not allow the BJP to enter the valley. That he has gone back on the electoral promise is not any different from what leaders of other political parties do.
An existential crisis
IT'S a telling comment on India's Congress party that a four-member committee it appointed in October to devise a strategy to rejuvenate it has turned out a non-starter because its members couldn't decide who should head it.
After all it's a game
SUPPOSE India had lost the World Cup cricket match against Pakistan at Adelaide, the reaction among its people would have been that of disappointment and remorse. But I do not think that they would have initiated scuffles with the Pakistani spectators. The Indians would not have destroyed television sets as some did in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan. Of course, there would have been a sense of humiliation, but it would not have poured on to the streets in the shape of fracas or demonstrations.
Trouble in Nepali paradise
AWAY from the glare of global headlines, Nepal is grappling with a constitutional crisis that could once again propel the tourist Mecca, sensitively situated between India and China, into full-fledged conflict.
Aam Admi Party routs BJP
IN a spectacular and dramatic turn of events little known Aam Admi Party led by Arvind Kejriwal has trounced formidable Narendra Modi's BJP. In the 70-seat Delhi Assembly election, AAP secured 67 seats. BJP managed only 3 seats. Congress which had ruled Delhi for 15 years scored a duck. Delhi is a Union territory, with the status of a state. It has its own government.