April 23, 2018
If there was ever any doubt that the current dispensation is compromising all institutions in this country three judgments of various courts across the nation in the last week have decisively proved that both individual members of the judiciary and, of course, investigating agencies have been unable to either resist temptations or withstand threats held […]
Read moreOpinion by Shashi Tharoor | Congress Must Point Out That We Too Share Hinduism We can turn the tables on the BJP by making them accountable for all the economic failures on their watch – both rural and urban, writes Shashi Tharoor. One of the new default assumptions in Indian politics appears to be that […]
Read more
March 26, 2018
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a gigantic insect.” You might recognise the opening lines of Franz Kafka`s novella Metamorphosis: these are some of the most famous opening lines in literature, their simple and factual nature increasing the impact of what they convey. Yet every translation of Kafka`s 1915 […]
Read more
March 18, 2018
Barely a year ago, as the Bharatiya Janata Party swept the assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, 2019 seemed like an open and shut case for the rest of the political firmament in India. Yet a day after UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath celebrated a year in office amid much fanfare, he has had to suffer […]
Read more
March 14, 2018
Sophia and Tariq were part of a large, noisy family. There were plenty of cousins with foreign accents and grand aunts with loud cackles. They gathered in Mumbai every couple of years to attend weddings, eat mangoes and shop. And on one evening, all the cousins would make their excited way to their grandparents’ apartment […]
Read more
March 12, 2018
British efforts led to the discovery of Sanchi stupas, Ajanta caves, and deciphering of the Brahmi script thus enabling reconstruction of a good chunk of our history. For a generation brought up on Edward Said’s criticisms it may come as a surprise that it was British Orientalists who re-discovered our artistic heritage and made it […]
Read more
March 7, 2018
If big politics is now mostly about headline management, BJP has emerged its unassailable practitioner Look back on the headlines screaming out of your front pages and causing prime time shoutrage about a week ago. These were all about nephew-uncle duo Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi and the money they had stolen from Punjab National […]
Read more
February 28, 2018
Strand Bookstall closed down just a few days ago to much sadness and many tears. But it did have a long innings. Tekkate Narayan Shanbhag – to give his full name — started his store when he was only 23, soon after his graduation from St Xavier`s College. The bookstore owes its name to Strand […]
Read more
February 24, 2018
For India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, religion is not a matter of personal belief, but a key feature of traditional identity politics and crucial to maintaining social order, ensuring discipline and conformity, and preventing radical change. Science and rationality threaten all of the party’s goals. NEW DELHI – India’s junior education minister, Satyapal Singh, recently […]
Read more
February 14, 2018
Two of Mumbai`s biggest public events happen within one month of each other. There`s the Mumbai Marathon in January (described in the last Notebook) and there’s the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival in February. Just concluded, the nine day festival was, by all accounts, a great success. When any event succeeds, the challenge for the organisers […]
Read more
February 7, 2018
The big and stately Gulmohar in our driveway hasn’t shed a leaf this winter. I hadn’t paid attention to its rebellion until I browsed through my Instagram photos. Two identical photos of the Gulmohar (one taken two years ago, and the other, three winters ago) caught my gaze and revived memories of winters bygone. In […]
Read more