Now that the Bombay/ Mumbai controversy has returned to the headlines, thanks to the Maharashtra elections, this may be a good time to examine the whole issue of the naming and renaming of places. Read more

Enough has been said and written about Shashi Tharoor and the austerity drive: why does he use terms like cattle class? Why does he need privacy in a deluxe hotel? Who is the holy cow? Etc.

But while I’m mostly on Tharoor’s side on this one, the contretemps seems to me to be one more reminder of how difficult it is for successful professionals to fit into the Indian political mainstream. They usually don’t understand the system, they rarely master its idiom, and most times, the system unites to repel them. Read more

Whenever people tell me that India has changed after the liberalisation of the 1990s, that business is now independent of government and that India’s industrialists now get on with the job quietly, I always say, “Well, up to a point…” Read more

I was one of those who stood up and cheered when Veerappa Moily suggested last weekend that the government was finally going to begin the process of getting rid of the noxious Section 377 which makes homosexual acts between consenting adults illegal. When the courts decided on Thursday that Section 377 should not apply to consenting adults, I was delighted. But we need to scrap this provision once and for all so there can be no appeal and alternative interpretations by other judges in other high courts. Read more

I was one of those who stood up and cheered when Veerappa Moily suggested last weekend that the government was finally going to begin the process of getting rid of the noxious Section 377 which makes homosexual acts between consenting adults illegal. When the courts decided on Thursday that Section 377 should not apply to consenting adults, I was delighted. But we need to scrap this provision once and for all so there can be no appeal and alternative interpretations by other judges in other high courts. Read more

I was a month too late. At the end of July, I was due to fly to London to see Michael Jackson perform at the O2 arena at his so-called comeback series of concerts. Now I guess I’ll cancel my trip.

Unlike many of those who are in mourning this weekend, I was never a great Michael Jackson fan. I always thought he was a bit of a weirdo and a paedophile. Nor was the music that terrific. Compile a list of the 500 greatest songs of all time and I doubt if more than one or two Jackson songs will make the cut. Read more

Around two decades ago, Prem Shankar Jha wrote a prescient piece about the coming of the new prosperity. Jha’s argument was that as India’s growth rate accelerated, this would lead to the rise of a new middle class comprising people who had benefited from the higher growth. Read more

The first thing that needs to be said about the Cabinet-making exercise is that it took far too long. The results came in on a Saturday and by the following Saturday there still was no government in place. We had to wait a further six days — something like 12 days after Manmohan Singh had been re-elected to know who the new ministers would be. Read more

The Atlantis Resort in Dubai may well have been one of the world’s most hyped hotels in 2008. Its grand opening bash attended by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Robert De Niro, Kylie Minogue and our own Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan cost $ 20 million and generated headlines all over the world. Its portfolio of fancy restaurants run by Michelin starred chefs (Nobu, Michel Rostang, Giorgio Locatelli etc.) has attracted global attention and its water park has proved to be one of the Middle East’s newest attractions. Read more

So, how well did you sleep when you read that Behenji wanted to be our next Prime Minister? How did you feel when you saw the BSP spokesman declare that his party had a single-point agenda: to make Mayawati Prime Minister? And did your hair stand on end when the leaders of the BSP informed the Third Front that their party would only agree to sign up on the condition that Behenji was officially declared as the Front’s prime ministerial candidate? Read more