Mahatma Gandhi was an apostle of peace. Narendra Modi, clearly, is not. But he is nobody’s fool. So when Anil Ambani compares the Gujarat chief minister to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, I do not think even Modi believes a single word of what he says. Read more

I have always envied those among my parents’ generation who had some treasured stories about personal meetings with the legends out of history books. Read more

Every five years for the past decade or two, there is one name that crops up in my part of the world for President of India: that of Dr B K Goyal, eminent cardiologist and a face that was often on Doordarshan in the decade of the 1980s, in the era when President Zail Singh and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi used to come calling on people like the Frontier Gandhi (Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) at the Bombay Hospital, where Dr Goyal is still a consultant. Read more

Oye! I always knew it cost the nation a lot to keep Mahatma Gandhi poor during his lifetime. But what I did not know was that it would cost tax payers Rs Six crore to keep Narendra Modi hungry — for just three days in air-conditioned ‘discomfort’! Read more

I am frankly sick and tired of the entire Anna Hazare melodrama. It is apparent to me and many of us from Anna’s home state, even if not to others who see in him a great saviour and a second Mahatma Gandhi, what is happening at Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi. Read more

For the first time ever, I have found myself agreeing with a BJP leader. When Arun Jaitley said in the Rajya Sabha that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s troubles came from the fact that he was being advised by far too many lawyers, he unerringly hit the nail on the head. Read more

I still recall how many people jumped on me when I described Anna Hazare as a loose cannon during his anti-corruption crusade at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi a few weeks ago. Still fewer cared for my observation that he was impressionable and wont to quicksilver changes of mind. Read more

On August 15 last year the BJP made such a fuss about their party president Nitin Gadkari’s absence at the flag hoisting ceremony in their party headquarters in New Delhi. Read more

I did not know when I was a kid; I still do not know too well even now –– do I believe in a God and if I do, in which God. I go along with the family in their prayers and rituals but if I ever really prayed to anyone for something in my life it was to Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi. Read more

On a no-news day comes the news that veteran actor Anupam Kher has pulled out of the title role in a film on Adolf Hitler to be directed by an Indian who is reported as saying – I am really appalled – that Hitler is responsible for India’s Independence! Read more