After every major breakdown that affects life in Delhi, all papers “go big” the next morning. I have often wondered if people are want to know how much they suffered.

Do you really want to know how you were stuck in a traffic jam near Defence Colony for hours because of flooding? Read more

Do you like turns?

Let me explain. A turn is copy continuing from Page One to a page inside, any page. Read more

Did you see our Page One on George W Bush’s session at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit?

The heading simply said, “Namaste India.” The picture underneath was of Bush with folded hands. A moment immortalised. Read more

You and I may not like politicians, but lets face it, don’t we love the game called politics specially during elections?

The sound bytes, the claims and counterclaims, repeated invocation of the higher power called the “high command” and, sadly, the losers. There is a certain magic about elections. And newspapers had a monopoly on it till, let’s say, 15 to 20 years ago. Read more

Are we obsessed with China?

All major and minor Indian newspapers used pictures of China’s 60h birthday celebrations prominently on Page One last September. Read more

I was in Afghanistan for a month during the 2001 war following 9/11. The Taliban were fleeing, Osama bin Laden was in hiding and the veil was about to go up again. The smell of cordite was still in the air and it was easier to buy a Kalashnikov than a bottle of rum. Read more

It’s easy to get carried away with cricket in India. You will never be accused of doing too much. No one has ever told an editor: you overdid the cricket story.

When M S Dhoni’s men were playing West Indies on Wednesday, the world, including everyone in the Hindustan Times newsroom, was watching Pakistan playing Australia. Read more

We got lucky with Kobad Gandhy and that’s how we had with the best story in town. Or was it more?
The excitement began early in the day.

Our Jamshedpur correspondent who has been in Delhi for a refresher course heard from a source: someone big has been picked up in Delhi. Read more

The wind was so strong there in the nights that you would go to sleep expecting to wake up in Delhi if you were lucky and Beijing if you were not. The mountains were all so bald.

And the grass, so few that you could count them, scorched yellow with little to save them from the sun. The terrain looked frighteningly serene, nothing moved because nothing could live there. Read more

How many times will we say, “Delhi collapses every time it rains”? We have said that four times already this monsoon, or perhaps more. Though it hasn’t rained that much, but the few times it did, the city collapsed.

Office hour traffic, which is usually quite slow, goes down to a crawl. Distances covered in five minutes take an hour or more. Sometimes, the jam begins just outside the colony gates. Read more