BJP president Nitin Gadkari told the party’s national executive that India is secular because Hindus are tolerant. Read more

Opposition parties in the country – the Left, the Right and the rest – are united, for a noble cause we are told, of fighting corruption of Congress. Read more

Disrupting parliament is the worst infliction on democracy. The opposition parties, by not allowing parliament to function, are running away from their most fundamental duty of holding the government accountable. Read more

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s reference to saffron terror has been topic of a raging debate in Congress. I have argued elsewhere that it’s a pointless debate. Read the article Read more

There are several, contradicting, conspiracy theories about the women’s reservation bill.

1) The backward caste leaders believe that it’s a conspiracy of the upper castes to deprive them of their hard-earned positions in political leadership. Lalu, Mulayam and Sharad Yadavs are openly talking about this fear. Read more

Strange are the ways of the people. There are always explanations for failures and successes in elections, but a lot more remains inexplicable. The results of the three state assembly elections are no different. Read more

Of the three states that vote on October 13th, Maharashtra is the most keenly watched. In Haryana, there isn’t much of a contest and Arunchal Pradesh will not affect the national political scene much. Read more

Jaswant Singh’s expulsion from the BJP has been interpreted by many as an assault on intellectual autonomy and as a sign of Sangh Parivar intolerance. That’s missing the point completely.

The academic value of Jaswant’s interpretation of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, which is at best debatable, is not really the issue here. Read more

The BJP and the CPM are facing their biggest crises ever. Both parties were defeated badly in the recent elections. Both now seem to be imploding.

Broadly, the diagnosis done by almost all political analysts is the same – the BJP and the CPM have not been able to reconcile themselves with the changed India. Read more

A hung verdict is what dealmakers like. Results of the 15th Lok Sabha elections have disappointed them all.

Busybodies in the capital had been salivating at the opportunities that a fractured verdict would provide. Read more