Home is where the heart is. For Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda [better known as Sam Pitroda, or Uncle Sam if you are part of the Gandhi durbar] that home, it seems, lies across the border. ‘I’ve been to Pakistan, and I must tell you, I felt at home,’ he says with the warmth of a man…
Last evening I attended a book launch at Badruka College. After the event, my friend Suresh and I stopped at a restaurant in Narayanguda for dinner. By the time we stepped out, the skies had opened up. Staying back wasn’t a clever option. Rain showed no sign of letting up. So we set off: Suresh…
She has been the rebel with no pause for more than two decades now. But this time, Arundhati Roy has outdone herself. In a shocking analogy, the Booker Prize winner of The God of Small Things declared that India has ‘perpetually waged war on its own citizens’ while Pakistan never used its army against its…
He is a freelance commentator and writer on politics, economy and security, with a special focus on China’s economy, and has held senior positions in government and industry. But show him the faintest whiff of Hinduism, Hindutva, or a certain shade from the orange end of the colour palette, and he goes ballistic. I have…
Remember the old car ads that boasted about being ‘ideal for Indian roads’? The Ambassador wore that badge with pride. Tata, however, has decided to be brutally honest. Its new Harrier.ev campaign [Tata ev – the perfect road for Harrier.ev] is not so much about the car as it is about the cratered reality beneath…
The Vipassana International Meditation Centre, Dhamma Khetta, at Vanasthalipuram, Hyderabad, celebrated its Golden Jubilee with a Mega One-Day Course on September 7. More than 850 meditators, supported by over 100 dhamma sevaks (volunteers), took part in the historic gathering, marking 50 years since the centre opened its doors in 1976. From a tin shed to…
The wheel of law has been knocked off its pedestal at Hazratbal. What should have been a celebration of faith turned into an unseemly episode of fury, vandalism, and misplaced zeal. A plaque carrying the national emblem Ashoka Chakra – that blue wheel of righteousness with its 24 spokes of virtue – was defiled by…
West Bengal has done it again. The state-run Urdu Academy cancelled a literary event after the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, joined by the Wahyain Foundation, objected to one of the invitees – none other than Javed Akhtar, poet, film writer, and permanent panelist on primetime debates. His alleged crime? Speaking against Islam. His punishment? Erasure. One would…
Peter Navarro, Donald Trump’s trade enforcer, has suddenly moonlighted as an Indian sociologist. On Fox News, between explaining why Russian oil barrels are bad for democracy and why tariffs are good for Trump’s re-election, he declared that India’s Brahmin elite are ‘profiteering at the expense of the Indian people’. Next stop, I presume, his next…
Hyderabad has always prided itself on thinking big. We built a Cyberabad without silicon, a film city without real stars, and a metro rail that has more hoardings than passengers. Now, the city is preparing for a sea change in tourism and aqua sports, without bothering to have a sea. Yes, by December, an artificial…
