03 May, 2023 How can it be that if Indian State invokes a common law principle so clearly enunciated in the US, it suddenly becomes a fascist enemy of decent NGOs? There has been quite a bit of noise about the current dispensation being against what is referred to as “civil society”. One expects this kind of diatribe […]
12 June, 2023 My one quarrel with Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan is that it emphasises on the war-mongering elements of Chola history not on their aesthetic, administrative achievements. The Irish political theorist Benedict Anderson postulated that nations are “imagined” communities. It is important to note that even the kingdoms and empires of antiquity are “imagined” entities. Arguably, […]
07 April, 2022 American ‘experts’ have an anti-India bias that started with Bush’s tilt towards Delhi. With Trump, it was the perfect storm for US Left to react. Recently, there has been commentary about the so-called ‘Hindu Right’ turning anti-American, jettisoning years of its stance of being anti-communist and pro-American. That is an intriguing point […]
18 March, 2022 I believe in the current dispensation. But in the interests of our republic, it is important that we have a reasonably strong pan-Indian opposition party. If for no other reason than the fact that a functioning democracy needs a strong opposition, many of us are disappointed with the steady decline of the […]
27 January, 2022 Some 25 years ago, I lived in London. I remember that at odd places on different streets, there would be Oxfam outlets where earnest individuals would collect old clothes for distribution among the poor. A worthy Dharmic and Christian act, if I may say so, even at the risk of offending the […]
December 22, 2021 We have enough legends, stories and text to justify and praise the Kashi project. I only hope that the effort to reduce dirt and debris is taken up at other sites as well. There has been a lot of coverage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Kashi speech last week. Critics see his […]
October 16, 2021 By resurrecting Air India, the present dispensation has finally undone the mistake that we can attribute to Nehru and his advisors. My great-grandfather Singanallur Narayanachar Anandathirtha Rao was a junior employee in the judicial department of the Madras Presidency. Despite not being a college graduate, he managed to get “promoted” by virtue of […]
September 26, 2021 Books written for students of economics and management make no references to Mahatma Gandhi. The losers are the students. Gandhi, with his encyclopedic range of interests, has much to say that can be treated as complementary to mainstream economics and management theories, or as even an intrinsic part of them. His contributions, […]
July 16, 2021 The purpose of this article is not to go into the tragic circumstances around the recent death of Father Stan Swamy. While many columns have been written about the tribal rights activist, including one by retired IPS officer Julio Ribeiro in ThePrint, I believe an attempt should be made to look at the […]
August 16, 2020 his is an extract from a piece of mine that appeared in The Indian Express on 25 November 2011: “When the Olympics were held in this country’s capital city, great care was taken to put on a show to impress foreign visitors. Dissidents were picked up and taken away from the city. Unwanted and […]