My career as a journalist has run parallel to the communication revolution in India. My first full blown election reportage was in 1984 – and I remember the long wait at the Central Telegraph Office to send out a telegram with just the salient points of a particular address by a particular leader after an election rally in the rural districts. Read more

Sharad Pawar is capable of a lot of things but lucidity and articulation in the English language is not one of them. Read more

With just under a year to go to the Lok Sabha polls, I shudder to think at the mish-mash India is faced with if neither the Congress nor the BJP were to get a majority – or at least emerge as the single largest party in the Lok Sabha. Read more

As I was growing up, I had acquired a friend who had desperately wanted to be a spy. Brought up seeing James Bond films and reading John Le Carre books, he had believed he could do much for the country and serve the people well as an intelligence officer in one of the various agencies in India. Read more

In a week full of scams and scandals and exposes all over the country, just some random thoughts about my overview of the state of the nation – or rather its leaders. Read more

The first time I met Sonia Gandhi was soon after she became Congress president – at a dinner at Nasik hosted by Sharad Pawar who was then sill part of the Congress. The party had swept more than 40 of the 48 seats to the Lok Sabha from Maharashtra and Pawar had just been made leader of the opposition. Read more

Contrary to what some politicians say, I do not believe the Sangh Parivar’s latest stress on Hindutva is a nine-day wonder that will disappear with the Kumbh Mela. I have reason to be convinced that it is a clever, well thought out strategy and that those who are propagating it know even as they call for the Ram temple in Ayodhya that the temple issue is a self-defeating goal. Read more

I served on the advisory council of the Censor Board for a term in the mid-2000s and I must say the experience was very interesting. Read more

Last week I heard with interest Rahul Gandhi, as the newly appointed vice president of his party, call for the identification of 40 to 50 people in the Congress in each state who could be leaders -potential chief ministers and prime ministers. Read more

As Bal Thackeray’s birth anniversary approaches (January 23), I wonder where the Shiv Sena supremo’s legacy has disappeared barely two months after his passing (on Nov 17, 2012). Read more