In the Rahul Gandhi school of jurisprudence, the accused is guilty until he proves himself innocent. And if the accused happens to be Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the rules of evidence can apparently be rewritten to suit the prosecution. First, allege vote chori. Then, when challenged to substantiate the charge, retreat to a ‘feeling’ that…
Just as the world expected, Donald Trump has found yet another reason to be aggrieved. The Nobel Peace Prize has gone to someone else. Again. And the man who believes he has done more for world peace than anyone since Columbus discovered America is left wondering why the world refuses to acknowledge his greatness. Imagine…
When a lifetime of campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize meets a laureate’s generous sense of humour, surely a little more applause can bring world peace a step closer. Navi Pillay’s offer to share her Nobel Peace Prize with Donald Trump, should the applause continue a little longer, was undoubtedly the joke of the season….
Life is full of surprises and ironies. For centuries, science and religion have often appeared to be on opposite sides of the argument about the nature of existence. In medieval Europe, challenging established religious beliefs could be a dangerous business. Galileo was forced to recant his belief that the Earth moved around the Sun. Giordano…
We have enough to worry about already. Global warming, erratic monsoons, rising temperatures, melting glaciers and governments dragging their feet on climate commitments. Now comes another warning from the Arctic: the ground beneath our feet may have been storing a climate time bomb for thousands of years. According to an AP report, the thawing permafrost…
There is some truth in describing a university as a ‘breeding ground’. Universities are, after all, supposed to breed ideas. The uncomfortable question is: what kind of ideas has Jawaharlal Nehru University been breeding? The social-media poster doing the rounds calls JNU a breeding hub for ‘anti-nationals’, ‘cockroaches’ and ‘dimagi Naxals’. The language is crude….
There is something wonderfully democratic about entitlement. It does not care whether you are sitting in the White House or waiting outside the gates of 7, Lok Kalyan Marg. It can make a person believe that the world’s highest honours – or the country’s highest office – are simply overdue. Donald Trump appears convinced that…
There are many ways to question an election. One can examine voter turnout, constituency-wise results, polling patterns, counting procedures, electoral rolls or the conduct of the Election Commission. Or, apparently, one can simply look at the calendar – preferably after checking the dates. A graphic doing the rounds carries a claim attributed to ‘Cockroach’ Abhijit…
Sometimes the biggest miracles in cinema happen when nobody is looking. When Hanuman Ansh arrived in theatres on August 7, hardly anybody was looking. Made for a reported Rs 2 crore, without a conventional Bollywood superstar and with none of the publicity machinery that accompanies big-ticket releases, it opened to a mere Rs 10 lakh….
There is an old saying that when a dog barks, it does not pause to check whether the person walking past is a king or a commoner. It simply barks. Our dear Rahul baba appears to have perfected that political habit. Day after day, the targets change – Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Gautam Adani, Mukesh…
