Mai-Baap re Baap
The Civil service still remain a big draw FRESH OUT of South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi made F a particularly strong speech in Benares in February…
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INDIA, THE CLASS ACT
With this kind of rebellious example, how will fair play and right eousness prevail? Won’t the lower castes get out of hand? In this decadent…
BHUTAN — REMOTE LAND STRIVES TO PRESERVE IDENTITYÂ Â
REUTERS 8 September 1985 The Seattle Times Sunday J11 English (Copyright 1985) THIMPHU, Bhutan_ ‘‘ Do not give pens, sweets or medicine to villagers,” warns…
THE SCINDIAS-The Battle Royal
It Began as a small tiff, as all battles do. The two antagonists identities lent it a delicious irony: Vijaya Raje Scindia, the ex-Rajmata of…
THE SCINDIAS-THE BATTLE ROYAL
It Began as a small tiff, as all battles do. The two antagonists’ identities lent it a delicious irony: Vijaya Raje Scindia, the ex-Rajmata of…
DESERTS – GREENING OF THAR
Lush vegetation in the Thar? Groves jamun trees? Mighty rivers the size of the Ganga and Indus? Seasons of monsoon-like rainfall? None of this is…
FRIEND IN NEED
The Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (Rss) is everybody’s favourite bugbear. So perhaps it was inevitable that it would be accused of having a hand in the…
Spate Of Senseless Tragedies
Qutab Minar, the 72.5-metre-high monolithic tower that Iltutmish built 750 years ago, witnessed two shocks in its hoary life-span. In 1368, it was struck by…
STONE AGE SHAKTI
That Trite phrase ‘as old as the hills’ has suddenly taken on startling significance in relation to a thread that runs through Hindu beliefs: the…
AN HEIR SPLITTING LEGACY
The story is as complicated as the whorls on a fingerprint, a ready-made screen-play bursting with grandeur, feudalism, pretension, and the tattered remnants of pomp…
Marching To Discovery
In the coolness of the early morning there is little traffic on National Highway 3. Outward bound from Nasik, the tar stretches infinitely in mottled…
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.…
CLEFT STICK
When aung san suu kyi won the Nobel Peace Prizein1991, two years after the Dalai Lama and two years before Nelson Mandela, she was hailed…
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…
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.…
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…).…
RED-LETTER DAYS
This is a year of anniversaries , some unpleasant, some prescient, some momentous. CE 2019 is important not only because of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s…