About Vinod Sharma
Political Editor Vinod Sharma has known Pakistan as a journalist and a peace activist for almost two decades. He reported out of Islamabad in the tense, often troublesome, early 1990s; watched A B Vajpayee visit Minar-e-Pakistan in 1999 and accompanied Indian MPs– including Lalu Yadav— on their 2003 peace mission to Pakistan. A year later, he led a delegation of Indian journalists to the Pakistani side of Kashmir. Sharma tracked the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s 2007 assassination through Pervez Musharraf’s fall and Asif Zardari’s elevation as President. His scarp book has cross-border tales of a civil society with which India can and must relate.
The Congress cannot rest on its oars in Karnataka even if it gets, as predicted by several exit polls, a clear majority in the state assembly. Its real test will be in the Lok Sabha polls when the electorate will vote for the next government at the Centre. [Read more]

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Posted by Vinod Sharma on Monday, May 6, 2013 at 6:32 pm
Filed under india · Tagged assembly polls, bjp, congress, Deve Gowda, exit polls, hindustan times, Karnataka elections, Lok sabha polls, Narendra Modi, news, Separated at Birth, UPA, Vinod Sharma, Yeddyurappa
If Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United) and the Bharatiya Janata Party do indeed break their alliance, a rapprochement may not happen between the old allies even in the outside chance of Narendra Modi leading his party to a tally close to double hundred. [Read more]

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Posted by Vinod Sharma on Monday, April 15, 2013 at 9:26 pm
Filed under india · Tagged Arun Jaitley, Bharatiya Janata Party, bjp, congress, hindustan times, Janata Dal (United), LK Advani, Lok Sabha elections, Narendra Modi, Nitish Kumar, Rajnath Singh, Separated at Birth, Sushma Swaraj, Vinod Sharma
The storm over Raja Pervez Ashraf’s pilgrimage to Ajmer Sharif was needless, to state the least. The Pak Premier was on a private visit and India went out of the way to make it appear as one, without, of course, causing any diplomatic affront to the visitor. [Read more]

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Posted by Vinod Sharma on Monday, March 11, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Filed under Pakistan, india · Tagged Ajmer Sharif, Ashraf's India pilgrimage, Asif Zardari, Bilawal Zardari, hindustan times, Line of Control, Manmohan Singh, news, Pervez Ashraf protests, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Salman Khurshid, Separated at Birth, Vinod Sharma
I find the Arun Jaitley-Markandey Katju spat hugely interesting for it has added value to the ongoing democratic discourse. [Read more]

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Posted by Vinod Sharma on Monday, February 18, 2013 at 10:51 pm
Filed under india · Tagged Arun Jaitley, hindustan times, JD (U), Markandey Katju, Narendra Modi, PCI, Press Council of India, seperated at birth, Vinod Sharma
The VHP’s endorsement of Narendra Modi as the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate to carry forward the Hindutva agenda is a double edged sword. It might unite the Sangh Parivar’s core base while cutting the NDA into pieces. [Read more]

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Posted by Vinod Sharma on Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 7:53 pm
Filed under india · Tagged 2014 lok sabha elections, hindustantimes, hindutva, Narendra Modi, news, RSS, Separated at Birth, VHP, Vinod Sharma