R. K. NARAYAN-THE MAN FROM MALGUDIÂ
It took me some time to discover Rasipuram Krishna swami Narayan’s house. Yadavagiri, the suburb of Mysore City, where Narayan stays, is an incredibly quiet…
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WILL THE EUPHORIA REMAIN ? Â
Gandhi must have been passing through an extremely clairvoyant phase when he came up with this statement in the Thirties. In the thirty years that…
INDIAN WILDLIFE – CAN THE TIGER SAVE ITS STRIPES?Â
“Going in quest thereof, one of our Soldiers, a Youth, killed a Tigre-Royal; it was brought home by 30 or 40 Combies (Koonbee), the Body…
Letter from the Editor
THERE can be little more excitement for the media than to chronicle political events from inception to climax. Opportunities tend to be rare, but as…
WIDOW OF INDIRA GANDHI ASSASSIN SET TO ENTER INDIA PARLIAMENT
23 November 1989  Reuters News  English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited CHAMKAUR SAHIB, India, Nov 23, Reuter – Long before Bimal Kaur Khalsa’s motorcade churns into…
THE JANATA PARTY – Will It, Won’t It, Will It, Won’t It Split?
The Janata Party will soon split. The Janata Party has always been a loose coalition. The Janata Party’s constituents have view- points and ambitions that…
Garam hawa
India must construct an enlightened climate change policy ‘FOOD PRICES set to rise as floods ruin crops’. ‘Prime Minister promises aid to flood victims’. Does…
INDIA : Return To Normalcy
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s dramatic announcement on January 18 that the Emergency in India is being relaxed and that elections to the Lok Sabha will…
The Big Squeeze
Turkmenistan’s “President for Life” Saparmurat Niyazov erected a 50-ft gold-plated statue of himself in the centre of the capital Ashgabat, eight years before he gave…
MRS GANDHI Vs. THE CHALLENGERS
Speaking about the 1971 elections to a Newsweek correspondent, Mrs Indira Gandhi had said: “I am the real issue in this election.” In 1977, too,…
THE NEW DEAL IN NEW DELHI
There had been many signs of the anti-Congress wind in the final days of the 1977 election campaign, but its magnitude amazed the canniest political…
BAHUGUNA’S BLITZ
If Politics is the art of deception, the Congress(I) symbolises its highly developed state. After crying itself hoarse about its inability to conduct the Garhwal …
Signs Of The Times
There was the baby-faced ex-pilot, all thumbs as he handled the controls in his political flight simulator; the rough-spun son of the, soil, a man…
SPOIL OF SYCOPHANCY
For all those journalists who think they belong to a thankless and poorly-paid profession, there is hope on the horizon. It comes from the latest…
LALDENGA’S WAR-DANCE
Events In Mizoram seem to be moving Inexorably towards a resumption of Insurgency The cease-fire agreement, which came into effect at midnight on July 31…
NOT SELLING VOLUMES
It was a browser’s dream come true kilometres of books that took hold of the bibliophile’s heart-strings and did not stop tugging for hours. For…
THE ART OF SURVIVAL
Deep inside the jungle in northernmost Mizoram, a lone man brews a tin mug of tea in the early morning haze. He is squatting on…
UTTAR PRADESH – PEACE OF THE GRAVEYARD
I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun. Yes it is. Vishwanath Pratap Singh had cause to be…
ENDS OF JUSTICE
Gauhati and Jorhat and small batches people took out processions in protest against the decision to hold the elections. Even political parties opposed to the…
GREAT STRESS TEST
Since you all love acronyms for the Good and Simple Tax and the Grand Stupid Thought, the headline is my humble contribution to your lexicon.…
ENOUGH ALREADY
I wish the government would stop trying to defend demonetisation. Every time there is bad economic news, the government jumps upto proclaim that demonetisation was…
HOW TO MAKE MORE WITH LESS
How much a hurry is prime minister Narender Modi in? It depends on your horizon. By one measure, he has 22 months, but then he…
CLEANING UP OUR ACT( India is trying to do its bit on climate change )
At the Hamburg group of 20 summit on 7-8July, diplomats toiled through most of the night over US intransigence on climate change before they agreed…
A FIRST-RATE PROBLEM
India’s economy is lurching like a car with two flat rear tyres. The monsoon has been better than expected: a bumper kharif crop is expected,…
CLOSE,, BUT NO CIGAR
Finance Ministers take on a certain air when they think things are going swimmingly and nothing can rock the economy when it is cruising along.…
KILLING ME SOFTLY
He took a deep breath of air. Once again he caught a strangeness on the wind, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither odour nor perfume—just strange,…
APOCALYPSE NOW
Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanashi, Gaya, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Muzaffarpur. Nine of the world’s ten most polluted cities listed by the World Health Organization are in…
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…).…
THE AIR IS THICK
The Good news is that both the Bharatiya Janata Partyand Congress seem to have finally woken upto the looming catastrophe of air pollution in our…