“I stared as one – and then the other – of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center collapsed. And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased.” Read more

At an important speech last Thursday since winning a second term, Obama ran into a heckler. Yet again. Read more

Obama, as is often said, will always be more popular than his policies. It is impossible not to pay attention to what he says; he’s still viewed as the well-meaning guy who broke some real barriers to get where he did. Read more

No part of Gandhi’s life has escaped scholarly attention in a corpus of a little over a century. Literature on him is abundant. Read more

The media is going yap, yap, yap and blah blah blah over Modi and Rahul. Blah …Modi… blah… Rahul …blah blah blah. Read more

An aspect of Israel that goes largely unnoticed is that the fiercest critics of its policies are Israelis themselves. Alice Miller is one such Israeli. Read more

It’s about time we put growth in its place, to borrow a line from economist Amartya Sen. Much has been made of our “high growth” – 8% or 9% or whatever. Growth in itself cannot lead to development, which is why economists such as Sen have been making a case for “growth-mediated development”. Read more

If the Indian economy were an airplane in mid-flight, it is facing the equivalent of a frightful turbulence. The rough patch has spooked some passengers more, in this case, India’s vast, toiling middle-class. Read more

Lakshmi Mittal, India’s second richest man by assets and owner of the global steel giant Arcelor Mittal, has said that “India is not a top priority for him”. The ostensible reason was that the country took fair amount of time to clear his investment proposals. Read more

This could hardly have escaped national attention: Have Muslims made their peace with Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s demagogic chief minister? It is a tough question, really. Let’s attempt an answer. Read more