Last week I met BJP’s Sushma Swaraj. She was a panelist at one of the sessions at Hindustan Times Leadership Summit. Ofcourse she spoke at length and put up a strong defense for her party, which according to some in the audience, was doing very badly. She was shrill and spoke in Hindi and English.

After a point I stopped listening to her and others on the panel comprising India’s opposition. [Read more]

Some weeks ago while driving through the streets of Mumbai, I spotted Jindal Mansion. I was not sure whether the house belonged to Navin Jindal, Congress MP. Then I spotted the national flag and was sure that it did. For those who have forgotten him, there is a “is” and “was” about Jindal: He is a Member of Parliament; he was a crusader: one who took on the Indian Government and questioned the Flag code of India. [Read more]

I had no clue about Kamal Bhasin’s acting abilities. Neither did I know that he had any inclination or interest in acting. I had always met him in Doordarshan, sometimes for a week at stretch because both he and I were nominated members of the Public Broadcaster’s Central Film selection Committee. Our task: to censor the already censored feature films and knock of scenes of sex and violence and subsequently certify the film for family viewing. [Read more]

The other day I met Pradeep Jain, a first time minister. He is young and in that sense fits well into  Rahul Gandhi’s youth formula. But that is about it. To me Jain appeared to be a typical don: bearded, an overdose of gold jewellery and sporting dark Rayban, perhaps an imitation, even inside his office. [Read more]

Last week I was driving through Mehrauli to a friend’s farm off Sultanpur in Delhi. The stretch from Qutub Minar to M.G. Road brought back interesting thoughts. The first being of a gutsy IAS officer who dared take on the marble mafia, the second of the much frequented Chattarpur Temple and the last of Mrs Indira Gandhi’s farmhouse a little ahead. [Read more]