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It seems prime minister Manmohan Singh’s honeymoon with the media is finally over. Thank heavens! Here is Sandipan Deb’s hardhitting column on the sheer nonsense that Singh’s press conference was all about. The Indian Express also warns us, in an editorial, that all is not well with Singh’s much-trumpeted ‘rural employment guarantee scheme.

Read a very funny cartoon strip today. (This is Our Life, Rajneesh, in the Mid-Day) Here it is, verbatim:
“In reality shows, the losing contestant cries, his teammates cry and in the end even the winner cries. I like it.
We should have something similar with politicians. Put 6 of them on TV and eliminate one every […]

I wrote a piece for the special year-end issue of Outlook magazine which I had titled as above, “The Death of Politics”. The article has been re-titled - but has been much appreciated by many. I am providing the link here. Hope the blogging public likes it. It does make an important point: that at […]

Multi-party democracy with universal adult suffrage is a very recent phenomenon in human history. Europe had Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs and Romanovs till the end of WW1. Even in Britain, till the mid-19th century, the vote was restricted to wealthy property owners and the total number of voters was only about 500,000. My point is this: since […]

The left does it so well. Scream about “issues” in Delhi and do exactly the opposite in the states it rules. The Indian Express does a good job of exposing leftist hypocrisies. Here’s one on the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) reports
On the issue of the Centaur hotel disinvestment, the CPM swears by the CAG’s […]

The Sena tiger was always spotty, but now he’s going potty.
In an expletive-laden 800-word editorial in the Saamna mouthpiece yesterday, Thackeray used uniquely Marathi abuses like ‘Lavanda,’ ‘Akkarmashi’ and ‘Upatsumbha’ to describe Sardesai and attacked the nature and style of his journalism.
Mid-Day was a bit shy of translating the words. Lavanda sounds very close […]

Poor Tavleen Singh. She’s lost respect, perspective and now even a bearing for facts. In her latest anti Sonia tirade, she questions Sonia Gandhi’s renunciation stating that it was because of adverse remarks by the President. Maybe Tavleen Singh has not read this.
CITIZENSHIP ISSUE NOT DISCUSSED WITH SMT. SONIA GANDHI
19-05-2004 : Rashtrapati Bhavan, New […]

or Sliding down a slippery slope and clambering back up
Ravikiran asks Why have the citizenship requirement at all? Why not simply have anyone stand for elections in India and become Prime Minister if they and their party win? Indians might elect Mrs. Thatcher as PM. (Maggie as PM? Good idea!)
As Ravi wants to slide down […]

I can ignore the Sushma Swaraj style theatrics about Sonia Gandhi becoming India’s next PM. After all Sushma has a constituency of hardcore Hindutva to promote. (Plus the political theatre will spring up responses like Rabri Devi’s)
What I find strange is the loss of perspective from respected columnists like Tavleen Singh. Tavleen Singh is […]

Election season is on in both India and the US. I find small observations interesting as they sometimes show striking parallels. Here’s an op-ed piece on John Kerry’s campaign in the NYT (free registration required).
The one big problem they (the Democrats) are not addressing — and are actually making worse — is the creepy tone […]

Today’s Economic Times carries an editorial entitled “Democracy - receding tide?” by Bronislaw Geremek (A former Solidarity leader). The article talks about the disillusionment with democracy in many parts of the world, as highlighted by The Pew Global Attitudes Project for 2003. Though people in countries with limited democracy seem to want more freedoms, those […]

I haven’t seen a single sensible argument in favour of the fee cut that Joshi is forcing down the IIMs’ throats. The fee cut has no economic rationale. No one asked for it. The students of these IIMs themselves are protesting the hike, seeing it for the obvious power grab it is. Joshi himself […]

With elections upon us and citizen’s groups urging the middle class to vote, I thought this question to be essential.
Q. Who Gets A Better Prime Minister . . .
… - a conscientious, informed, principled and intelligent voter or a dim-witted and ignorant voter?

A. They both get the same Prime Minister!
[Direct lift from No Treason […]

In the discussion about Free Software below, the heated arguments have veered towards the distinctions or similarities that might be drawn between ‘Liberal’ and ‘Libertarian’ Thought.
I think it is important to shed light on this topic, because it is one of great contention. Though ultimately it is just a matter of labelling or taxonomy, since […]

As both India and the US are in election mode, the theatrics have started. This para from a piece in the NYT caught my eye.
From Washington to Hollywood, the Dean campaign often provided valet parking at its events, spent heavily to bus outsiders in to speeches in Iowa and began pumping money into commercials seven […]

Over the last few days Jaswant Singh has been doling out sops and tariff rationalisation in an effort to augment the feel good factor in anticipation of the elections. Though it is time to rejoice on account of the tax reductions, what I’d really like to see is a reduction in expenditure, which ofcourse won’t […]

Anchit Sathi, a friend, who lives, studies and works in France, started an email discussion about the French Scarves Scandal. A couple of people including myself responded, this is the email transcript…

Some of you might have heard of the head scarf scandal in france that s been going on for quite a while now. for […]

In the previous post about John Itty, Yazad talks about pontification. Another John, Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Karol Wojtyla, the real pontiff, is quoted by Encarta as saying something really strange when he was elected Pope in 1978

“God will forgive you for what you have done to me.”

I wonder what that is supposed to […]

While “with us or against us” has been a staple in US foreign policy (GWB is a forceful supporter of the theme), I find it surprising that bloggers who are rabidly anti Bush also use this principle as a crutch.
Last week, I happened to comment on Jivha’s post on Uma Bharti forgetting development / […]

But Anya misunderstands. The state of the Congress Party has really nothing to do with its performance in the state elections. It could have swept these elections and I’d still have predicted that it would lose in the General Elections next year.
Why do Congressmen stick on to Sonia as their leader when […]