Autobiographies that aren’t self-commendatory help chronicle history better. That’s the least top leaders and constitutional functionaries can do to empower public opinion or disabuse it of motivated propaganda. Read more

The Dinesh Trivedi episode has again driven home the grave administrative and constitutional shortcomings that bedevil mixed regimes. The arrangement devolves disproportionate powers to parties with tiny numbers in parliament, dwarfs the office of the Prime Minister and makes political allegiance more inviolable than allegiance to the Constitution. Read more

Elections often leave behind abiding images such as those captured after the Congress’s stunning defeat in polls after the Emergency. Carried on the front page of a prominent English daily of the time, a photograph that said it all was of a dustbin stuffed with Congress posters with Indira’s face peering out. Read more

The BJP needs a new Atal Bihari Vajpayee, not a Narendra Modi struggling to live down a gory past to qualify as Prime Minister. Read more

Mohali is for optics. The real match between India and Pakistan is across the negotiating table. And in that, there aren’t going to be any winners or losers. Not at least in the visible future. Read more

The BJP’s demand for a Bharat Ratna for Atal Bihari Vajpayee is loaded with political meaning — come as it does at a time the principal Opposition is seeking Dr Manmohan Singh’s resignation over the 2G spectrum scam. Read more