The other day a colleague of mine in Tamil Nadu said, “Amma should become the Prime Minister of the country post 2014 general elections. She has the iron hand to set everything and everyone right in the country brimming with an irrepressible multitude of people and politicians.” Read more

I briefly met Bollywood star Salman Khan here in Lucknow. Initially he looked quite shy, unlike his celluloid image. As the guests in a crowded hall cheered him, girls offering him red roses, he stood tight-lipped. I prodded him to say something, even narrate some dialogue of his new film ‘Ek Tha Tiger’, for whose promotion he was visiting the city. Read more

Once again I am in a dilemma over what to highlight first — the insensitivity of the woman cops who had shamelessly put behind bars a minor Dalit girl who had gone to the police station with her mother to lodge a complaint of sexual assault or the women achievers whom Hindustan Times had felicitated in Lucknow on Saturday for their grit and determination. Read more

It was 12 in the night and I was dead tired when I got a call from our family friend asking me to run a campaign in the newspaper to ‘Save Water’ during Holi festivities. I naively asked him, Why? He replied bluntly, “Perhaps we can’t send them water but we can certainly empathize with people dying of drought in Maharashtra.” I was touched. Read more

Who could have ever imagined that the biggest bulk order for computers across the globe would be made by one among the BIMARU states in the country? Read more

The other day listening to a debate on the burning topic of Rahul versus Modi, I was aghast to hear a senior Muslim leader’s comment, “If I have to choose between development and deaths in elections, I will vote for the latter.” Read more

While travelling in a taxi in Mumbai, I broached the hot topic of discussion these days, ‘Modi as BJP’s prime ministerial face’. The taxi driver seemed a bit unsure about its overall outcome on BJP’s fortunes but was sure about his own vote going to Modi. Read more

It happened over a decade back. JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav was contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Budaun in Uttar Pradesh when I happen to meet him at a guest house there. Read more

Young India is rising. The tell-tale signs are there for all to see. And facing the heat, perhaps for the first time, are the politicians, who have blissfully remained oblivious of this fact that this young India has a voice — wanting to be heard, wanting answers that are logical and do not smack of politics. Read more

Of late the national president of the Samajwadi Party Mulayam Singh Yadav has been hobnobbing with Congress patriarch Narain Dutt Tiwari, whose immense wisdom and wit have got overshadowed by all the bad things in the recent past. Read more