A coalition of opposites?
Is Owaisi BJP’s best friend? Now that his party is contesting only a few seats in Bihar, some of the conspiracy theories have been quietened, but even so there are many who believe that some...
View ArticleThe Mocktail: The power of liquid imagination
Blue Lagoon. Tangy Black Beauty. Mississipi Blue. Litchi Colada. Cool Flamingo. Lava Flow. Purple Rain. Across the country, the beverage is being reinvented. The mocktail can be seen pretty much...
View ArticleReacting with hate?
Insinuations, allegations and denunciations are flying thick and fast. Raghuram Rajan should be sacked. President Pranab Mukherjee is a throwback from the Congress era. Zubin Mehta is a Parsi elitist...
View ArticleBihar elections: Defeated by anger?
Bihar has spoken and the BJP has lost an election that it had staked a lot on and thrown everything at. It had used its trump card Modi extensively, it had used the Amit Shah...
View ArticleTerrorism, the contagion which cunningly feeds on our impulses
The anger is understandable, but the angrier we are, the likelier it is that the terrorists will win. Maybe not the ones with this name, but someone of their ilk, someone using similar methods and...
View ArticleThe emoji disruption?
Oxford dictionary has chosen as its word of the year, not a word but an emoji of ‘face with tears of joy’. For those not in the know, an emoji is a pictogram that expresses, among...
View ArticleAn exhausted lull is perhaps the best we can hope for
Aamir Khan’s contribution to the debate on intolerance has clearly touched a raw nerve. While the entire debate has been a deeply polarizing one, the reaction to Aamir’s words has somehow been...
View ArticleLabels capture but a small aspect of the complexity of a person
My father is a staunch supporter of Narendra Modi and the BJP government. Given the views he holds, in today’s parlance, he is certainly far removed from being classified as a liberal; in fact some...
View ArticleThe democracy of fear
Analysts will be bereft if (and not when, as has so far been assumed) Donald Trump eventually does not make it as the Republican nominee for the 2016 elections, for the booming industry trying to...
View ArticleThe choreographed big fat Indian wedding
In the new improved Indian wedding, everybody, not just the bride and groom, get married. Or so it seems. Everyone and everything look as if they are snorting the white powdery stuff, as revelry takes...
View Article2015: The empire strikes back?
The principal achievement, if you can call it that, of 2015, is to make us realistic about what kind of change is possible in India. Through the year, the hope of transformational change, be it...
View ArticleA successful failure?
The successful counter-offensive against the terrorists who launched the attack on the Pathankot Air Force base, is apparently not that successful. After proclaiming victory, and basking in the...
View ArticleAn ‘odd-even’ experiment that seems to be working
The odd-even experiment that is underway in Delhi is actually two experiments rolled into one. The first and the obvious one concerns an effort to reduce pollution and has done better than expected, at...
View ArticleThe enigma of work: Relationship between effort & reward
Is begging work? On the face of it, this is not a question worth asking for the answer seems self-evident. Begging is seen by most as a form of inactivity that verges on the parasitic,...
View ArticleIncredible India or incredibly lazy?
The idea that Bollywood celebrities are needed to market India reveals a poor understanding of how brands work So now it’s the turn of Priyanka Chopra and Amitabh Bachchan to be the brand ambassadors...
View ArticleMatch-fixing: Unethical or illegal?
The first time it happened, the idea that some Indian cricketers could be involved in fixing matches was a truly devastating one. Having grown up like millions following the game to the point of...
View ArticleThe diversity dilemma
The debate around the lack of diversity in the Oscar nominations raises some complex questions not only about race, but about several other patterns of exclusion. It is possible to respond by taking an...
View ArticleAn angry nationalism
Much has been said about the JNU issue. A broad range of opinions have been expressed, but there is an influential view, subscribed to by many commentators on both sides, albeit to different degrees,...
View ArticleWhat unites us
Given the divisiveness of the political discourse today, perhaps its time to become a little naïve again and go back to some rudimentary first principles. What we see today as implacably opposed...
View ArticleMen at work?
In Tokyo, when the flight took off, the work crew on the tarmac, stood to attention in a line and bowed their farewell to departing passengers. In Delhi, when it landed, groups of men slouched...
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