For nearly a decade, Prashant Kishor sold victory like a commodity. He stitched alliances, polished images, massaged egos, and handed out political makeovers with the confidence of a man who had cracked the algorithm of Indian democracy. After years of scripting other people’s wins, he decided Bihar needed his own brand of ‘jan suraaj’ (people’s…
T.S. Eliot found April to be the cruelest month. Of course, that was for a different reason. Now, November seems terrorist friendly. Here, a curious and pattern and perhaps an alarming symmetry is emerging. Consider a few dates: the 9/11 attacks (September, yes – but in the northern-hemisphere autumn), the 26/11 Mumbai attacks on November…
Rahul Gandhi does it again – bowls another no-ball of logic and follows it up with a long appeal. This time, the self-appointed umpire of morality questions Jay Shah’s elevation as ICC chairman, wondering aloud how someone who is not a cricketer can head the game’s highest body. He sounds genuinely offended, as if cricketing…
Delhi’s air-quality index (AQI) drifting in the 350-400 range is not a statistic – it is a lifestyle. For three straight years the capital has been wrapped in a toxic haze so opaque that even sunlight seems to need permission to shine. Hospitals are reporting rising admissions of women and children with respiratory distress; oncologists…
The Congress once styled itself as the custodian of every Indian – every faith, every creed. Somewhere along the way, it put one faith on the deferred list. In the name of secularism and social balance, the party has treated the Hindu ethos like old furniture – too large to discard, too shiny to polish….
Hyderabad Press Club elections 2025 seemed nothing less than civic polls, minus the EVM glitches. I have never been a member of the Press Club – whether at its earlier address near Basheerbagh or its present location at Somajiguda. Distance was the main concern, not that I am allergic to ‘clubbing’. Once a retreat, now…
There was a time when a man of sixty looked every inch of it – silver hair, sagging frame, and a face that told the story of ration queues, monsoon fevers and the price of kerosene. Today’s sexagenarian, however, turns up at the airport in jeans and a smartwatch, returning from a yoga retreat in…
The English language has always been an open house, welcoming words from Greek, Latin, Hindi, Urdu, and lately, the internet. Its generosity is unmatched – it borrows freely, never returns, and calls the loot enrichment. Every generation adds its slang and scrambles the syntax, but the present one seems to be doing it at the…
Overconfidence, rudeness, and arrogance – that is how the internet has described 10-year-old Ishit Bhatt after his short stint on Kaun Banega Crorepati 17. What should have been a moment of delight on India’s favorite quiz show turned into a social media trial, with hashtags calling him ‘the most hated kid’ trending across platforms. Bhatt,…
The Nobel season has begun. On Monday, the medicine prize opened the 2025 awards with scientists Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi honoured for their discoveries on peripheral immune tolerance. The prizes for physics, chemistry, literature and economics will follow soon. And then comes the big one still to be announced – the Nobel…
