India

The Dangling Conspiracy Question

Shahina KK

Twenty-one years after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, the mysterious Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency, set up to find out who was behind the conspiracy, has provided no answers

The Matrix Reloaded

Rahul Pandita

Three years after the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, India’s response to terror remains unchanged

The Importance of Being Sonia

Dhirendra K Jha

Why the Congress cannot do without her. And why that presents her with yet another political challenge

‘No harm in elevating the status (of the Lokpal) to a Constitutional body’

Dhirendra K Jha

Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi heads the parliamentary Standing Committee in charge of formulating India’s Lokpal Bill. The committee has submitted reports on two other pieces of anti-graft legislation: the Whistleblower and Judicial Accountability bills. He spoke to Dhirendra K Jha on how the Lokpal Bill, together with the two other bills already cleared by the parliamentary panel, will serve as an important bulwark against corruption

The Right to Disagree

Parvaiz Bukhari

What hope does a free exchange of ideas have in a litfest whose organisers themselves won’t stomach dissent?

Anna’s Taandava

Kalpish Ratna

The wave of recent popular uprisings, including our very own, are reminiscent of an ancient cathartic tradition. Some will remember it as the Dancing Mania

No Scope for Reddy Redemption

Anil Budur Lulla

Janardhan and Jagan have been partners in ways so clear and clever that they cannot but drag each other down

After Nitish, the Flood

Dhirendra K Jha

In a scandal typical of Bihar, money was sanctioned to repair over a thousand kilometres of zamindari embankments that did not exist. Nobody knows where the funds went

The Post-Anna Political Arena

Jatin Gandhi

The Lokpal issue, as Rahul Gandhi appears to fear, has left the Congress at risk of losing its young urban voters. But whether the BJP will gain them is not clear

The New Godman in Town

Haima Deshpande

He is married with a daughter, likes to race his car, has 100 watches, 400 sunglasses, and almost the entire legislative assembly of Maharashtra seeks his ‘advice’. Bhayyu Maharaj, a stranger to Anna but the one who crucially mediated with him at the Government’s behest, is an unusual guru