CALCUTTA IS FOEVER

Thirty years ago, a dishevelled man leaned across and shouted at me in the smoke-filled, raucous Olympia bar on Calcutta’s Park Street: “Calcutta is forever!”…

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THE BHAJAN BLUDGEON

The Sprawling city that Charles-Edouard le Corbusier had designed for bureaucrats and retired people looked like an army encampment girding up for an enemy onslaught.…

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TAKEN FOR A RIDE

No point of no return was so final as the one Charan Singh and Devi Lal reached on July 21. The crusty Jat leaders have…

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TELLING NUMBERS

Look Carefully at all the Headlines, screaming or otherwise, that are popping up these days about corruption. How many of them feature women? Study after…

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The Dog’s tail

There is no loophole that has not met an Indian taxpayer. A Hindi proverb says you can never straighten a dog’s tail (kutte ki poonch…).…

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