I am at Reis Magos,a 14th-century fort,one of the oldest forts in western India overlooking Panjim city in Goa. My guest today is one of India??s youngest and brightest chief ministers of one of India??s smallest,but not the least important,states. Manohar Parrikar,welcome to Walk the Talk. You??ve always been an important figure in Indian politics...
This week saw the return of a voice, and face, from a distant past in our headlines: former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist S. Nambi Narayanan. A brilliant rocket scientist, he not only lost his career, but also a decade of his life, his meagre savings, honour, academic work and self-esteem, through a witch-hunt...
Medals apart, one of the more stirring Indian moments of this Olympics came on Friday evening when Amit Kumar, still 18, who stumbled into wrestling because his father delivered milk to Guru Satpal’s akhara, was beating World Championship bronze medallist Hassan Sabzali Rahimi of Iran in his pre-quarter final bout in the 55-kg category. Just...
India has changed. It will vote for those who understand, respect and embrace this change with humility, not hubris Has Uttar Pradesh changed? That question will be asked often after this election. The state has given a clear verdict for the second time in a row. For two decades before this, it was a state...
Some conclusions look obvious after travelling through West Bengal in the last week of the election campaign. One, that we are guilty of exaggerating the Left’s brutalities and understating its intellectual failure to comprehend a modernising society’s hunger for upward mobility. Two, that by presuming that the people of this state would be grateful for...
Dr Elinor Ostrom,you won the Nobel and there were some good headlines and some nasty headlines. Some people said it was even more surprising than Obama getting the Nobel. Yes,but I did not spend too much time reading the not-so-nice ones,I don??t get defensive. I have been turned down for so many things. When I...
Until the very untimely death of her husband (Digvijay Singh of the JD-U), Putul Kumari Singh was just a traditional Thakur wife. But there was also an inevitability to her being pitchforked into politics, as her husband’s successor, and now she is contesting as an independent in the Lok Sabha by-election at Banka which, she...
Let us begin with a straightforward question: are you for the Commonwealth Games, or against? Straightforward and simple, you might say. Everybody is against the wretched Games, and so, of course, am I. Think again. You didn’t hate the CWG until two weeks ago. In fact, you were proud that your country, and its capital,...
Over the past two weeks I have had to field several calls from Pakistani TV channels seeking a comment on what they see as provocative statements made by the army chief, General Deepak Kapoor. I give them all one short answer: this is an Indian general thinking aloud, expressing personal views at a semi-academic discussion....
Every reporter pays his dues doing one beat, or story, in his lifetime. I paid mine covering the Northeast between 1981-83. Just as you can’t get that out-of-sight, out-of-mind region on our front pages these days, then you couldn’t keep it off. The ’80s were the most perilous of what the American South Asianist, Selig...