As the power of organising societies evolved from primitive groupings based on fear and incentives to complex networks powered by science and reason, the role of religion has for all practical purposes become irrelevant to public discourse. Read more

Since we have relegated the arduous task of thinking — that key determinant that differentiates man from beast — to our leaders, we need to accept its consequences as well. The Babasaheb Ambedkar controversy, conveniently aroused six decades after an innocuous cartoon (look carefully, it is clear that Jawaharlal Nehru is whipping the snail, not Ambedkar) was published, is really an investment in a future that says the following: if yesterday’s leaders are today’s gods, tomorrow’s gods will emerge out of today’s MPs. Read more

What do you do when spiritual gurus enter the political arena, rake up political issues — and push a democratically elected government into a corner? I laughed. Read more

It had to come one day, and today is that day.  I had been pondering for a long time about the name of this blog. It began, as some of its early visitors know, two years ago, at 6.29 pm on January 22, 2009 as a blog that tracked the esoteric domain of Research with Is knowledge stealing our silent moments? Read more

In two weeks, we are going to see the religious and political leaders of the world come together to try and sort out — or better still, accept — differences in faiths and still live together without discord. Read more

Why are Lalu Prasad, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mamata Banerjee so anxious about giving salaries to imams of mosques? Why, after 17 years, are the chiefs of three national parties — Rashtriya Janata Dal (Lalu), Samajwadi Party (Mulayam) and Trinamool Congress (Mamata) — raking up a Supreme Court judgement and this issue now? Read more

This blog was born at 6.29 p.m. on January 22, 2009. I was planning to end it, but haven’t been able to do that. Maybe I’m only delaying its death.

Beginning next week, as I move from following research to tracking religion, Cutting the Edge will get replaced by Losing My Religion. Read more

Let’s not laugh at Mayawati’s money garland or Ramdev’s political steps — they are far more serious than many of our other illustrious leaders’ exploits. The joke, as I see it, is on the Indian thought-aping intelligentsia, the Indian digital-haves Twitterati, and the Indian power incumbents. Read more

What a week! Handling one important event is big enough. But the week that just passed saw four. Standing ovation to my team of excellent business journalists who diligently followed the nuances and didn’t allow even one story to get off our radar. Read more

With Verdict 2009 behind us, it’s time to redefine politics — and I mean the word itself. But with 43-and-a-half concepts of politics littering the political science space, coming to any rational conclusion becomes as easy as time travel. Metaphorically speaking, however, it is indeed time travel, through a brilliant research note by T.J. Donahue of Yale University, that helped me organise the definitional litter. Read more