Modi’s latest two-and-a-half-minute video appeal to Gen Z stands out as timely and apt. This writer, a strong believer of calling a spade a spade, has been a critic of Modi and his party but also praised him where it was due on various occasions. One such chance Modi has given in his mid-70s is…

The dictionary meaning of defection is clear. But who wants clear things? Everyone loves clouds. In politics, there are clouds of confusion and suspicion. If you dissect ‘defection’, 6 letters of this word support ‘defect’. The biggest defect of this world is that all in politics need not be fair. Because it’s all about war…

Historically, India lived with the behemoth that was the Congress party. While several other political parties coexisted with strong ideological identities of their own, they largely remained also-rans, unable to surpass the Congress. However, the 1950s and 1960s witnessed the emergence of a genuine multi-party system, with new political formations and organised opposition groups entering…

One wonders if there is any country left untouched by Trump when it comes to being made fun of, including its leaders. The less said the better about how he peddled blatant falsehoods regarding his alleged interference in settling issues between India and Pakistan in the recent past. Time and again, Modi’s lieutenants in the…

When the Chief Justice of India used the term ‘cockroaches’ during a hearing, referring to unemployed youth, he also added that they were parasites of society. Within hours, he clarified that the term was meant only for those with fraudulent and fake degrees and was not intended to apply to everyone. Whether his utterance was…

Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Nara Chandrababu Naidu, has exhorted people to have more children before it is too late to repent. Naidu is not normally known for making out-of-the-box statements of this nature. He is not the type who speaks impulsively without applying his mind. He is perhaps the only Chief Minister in the…

In the small yet picturesque town of Kotagiri, about 29 kilometres from Ooty, this writer stayed for five days even before the election results were declared. During casual conversations with locals, despite exit poll predictions, most people mentioned either the DMK or the AIADMK, largely reflecting their traditional political loyalties. Very few believed that Vijay…

Call it a play on words, but after a recent, rather harrowing drive, this writer is convinced the answer is a resounding yes. What began as a neatly planned road trip from Hyderabad to Bengaluru on April 29 nearly spiralled into a roadside nightmare—saved, quite literally, by a blinking dashboard sensor most of us barely…

Much like Much Ado About Nothing, the enduring drama over Andhra Pradesh’s capital risks becoming an exercise in noise rather than necessity. What began as a legitimate post-bifurcation challenge in 2014 has, over a decade later, devolved into a prolonged political spectacle—rich in rhetoric, poor in resolution. Amaravati has remained at the heart of this…

Among public figures, Garikapati appears to be the first high-profile “victim” of the paraabhava dhaati predicted in the panchangam during Ugadi. Few would have imagined that a preacher admired for his blunt, unapologetic style—often seen as a counterweight to the more measured approach of contemporaries like Chaganti—would face such a sweeping and viral backlash. The…