An election without issues. Really?
“A poll of pitches and promises, but no national issues that connect.” That headline on April 14 from The Times of India sums up what many are asking: What’s the big issue in the general election? For...
View ArticleWhere the Congress totters
National media doesn’t really care, but West Bengal is convulsed with excitement. Elections are due on May 30, with all the drama that comes with it. Mamata Banerjee, the boss of the main opposition...
View ArticlePressure-cooker politics
In another 24 hours, every party that’s going to fight the crucial elections in four states this summer will finish doing their most gut-wrenching pre-poll activity: selecting candidates who’ll contest...
View ArticleStates of Graft
This year is the 20th anniversary of two events that changed many things forever. In 1991, the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh team dismantled India’s rigid licence-permit raj, opened it up to the rest of...
View ArticleJaat-Paat or Haath?
Akhilesh Yadav is relaxed in the spacious drawing room of father Mulayam Singh Yadav's home in Lucknow. Pollsters say their outfit, the Samajwadi Party, will win between 160 and 170 seats in Uttar...
View ArticleAre we all misreading the Vadra Story?
This week, India's news and political space has been convulsed by allegations levelled by India Against Corruption (IAC) against Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law, Robert Vadra. Arvind...
View ArticleDecoding the politics of Nitish Kumar's rally
Nitish Kumar's Sunday rally in Delhi was to convince the central government that Bihar was a "special-category" state that needs cheap funds for development. "Give us special status by 2014, else, we...
View ArticleThe bees in his bonnet
In March last year, soon after the Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, had suffered a humiliating defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, The Economistran a story called A welcome slap in the face....
View ArticleCongress’ game plan for Andhra Pradesh includes a careful weighing of caste...
Which state of India has the maximum number of ministers in the central government? The answer, if you haven’t got it already, is Andhra Pradesh . It has 12 members in the Cabinet or as ministers of...
View ArticleWhat do Sunday's poll results mean for parties?
Results of elections in four out of the five states that were held recently are out. With the exception of Chhattisgarh, where the outcome is not clear at the time of writing, people have voted against...
View ArticleRahul Act on This
As you read this, members of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), the largest gathering of MPs and other leaders of the party, would be settling down to chart the course for Lok Sabha elections due...
View ArticleA scandal in Srinagar
Over the last few years, the Congress has had a tie up with the National Conference (NC) party in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).This alliance was formed after an earlier one with the People’s Democratic...
View ArticleWhy Hukum Singh is Wrong
Earlier this week, Hukum Singh, one of the people being probed for instigating the riots in Muzaffarnagar last year, and the BJP candidate from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, said he would stop people...
View ArticleWhat’s left of the Left?
In the course of five years, the fortunes of India’s Left parties have come crashing down around their ears. Sure, in electoral terms, the Left was never a pan-India phenomenon. It was hugely...
View ArticleWhat Modi’s vitriol will fetch him
The long Lok Sabha campaign was expected to be loud and occasionally vitriolic, but the toxicity generated by Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime minister in-waiting and his henchman Amit Shah, has become...
View ArticleGrin or Grim? How the Congress lost its way
The rules of Parliament say that to be recognized as the leading opposition party, an outfit has to have at least 10% of the total seats in the House. There are 543 seats in the lower house and the 10%...
View ArticleLet Priyanka be Rahul's political guide
Congress party veteran Oscar Fernandes has said that Priyanka Gandhi is ready to step into active politics. Apart from being a five term Lok Sabha MP from Udupi, Fernandes has known the Gandhi family...
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