I’m no admirer of B S Yeddyurappa. But I respect the fact that he’s an elected Chief Minister who cannot be trifled around by moneybags and mining mafias.

There indeed is a factional dimension to the crisis arising out of the Bellary mining syndicate’s rebellion against the Karnataka CM. Read more

I can feel these days a tenuous consensus building among security experts in India and Pakistan for some kind of institutionalised interaction between intelligence agencies of the two countries. It all began with a rare meeting between Pak ISI chief Shuja Pasha and defense advisors in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. Read more

An opinion piece I wrote in the Hindustan Times, on Lalu Yadav’s unblemished, secular track record and his utility for the Congress on that count has evoked a mixed response. It’s evident that regardless of whether one likes or hates him, one cannot ignore the RJD leader’s ready wit and rustic charms that make him the best political communicator in business.

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So, it was the Political class that was divided, unsure and circumspect. The people of India were one in what they wanted out of Elections 2009. Little surprise then that even the Congress’s poll managers, from Sonia Gandhi downwards, received the outcome with disbelief. Read more

Middle class Pakistanis have always been enamored of the scale and substance of Indian democracy. But the ongoing campaign hasn’t engaged their attention barring, of course, stock references to the plight of Muslims, Naxal violence and the shameful jooton-ki-barsaat.
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