“If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light.” – Rumi During Diwali week, the Prime Minister was a de-light-ful winner of the national Fancy Dress Contest cosplaying as a brave soldier. You might have seen the reels by now and the blanket coverage. You might have also spotted a mugshot of… Continue reading Why States, Not Centre, Should Get All The Credit For GST ‘Savings’
Rapper and songwriter Travis Scott will hustle onto stage in Delhi this coming weekend. Music to the ears of rap aficionados. Not my scene. But a month later, one hopes to be at the concert in the capital by the Oscar and seven-time Grammy-winning musician, Jon Batiste. From Coldplay to Ed Sheeran to Guns N’… Continue reading Indians Are Loving Their Music Concerts … But Not Their Venues
Special Intensive Revision. Corruption. Caste equations. Out-migration. Education. Yes, Bihar is weeks away from speaking its mind. Like any election — experts, observers and shoot-in-the-dark psephologists are deconstructing “strategy” and “stance”. Over the next few weeks, your neighbour, your niece in her second year of undergraduate studies, and your uncle will turn into electoral pundits.… Continue reading India is staring at one of its biggest crises: Unemployment of the educated
A friend told me not to do a column on this subject. It is completely pointless writing about three women, international literary rock stars, who get thousands of column centimetres of media attention and are feted all over the world. Why bother to write a column on these three much-decorated writers? They get enough. In… Continue reading Books will survive the AI invasion, if their fate is in the hands of women
The Modi coalition care two hoots about Parliament If you are looking for more examples to bolster this proposition, which members of the Opposition often make, then the week began with another Black Monday for the Union government. The Supreme Court did more than just rap the knuckles of those who indulged in subterfuge legislation.… Continue reading Waqf Act: Probing questions that India wants Supreme Court to ask
‘Koffee with Jaitley’, my limited interactions with Sushma Swaraj, have helped shape me as a parliamentarian “Disagreement converts the plausible into the right, and the right into the good decision” — Peter Drucker. You can learn from people you disagree with. You can learn from people whose ideology you stridently oppose. You can learn from… Continue reading Learning From My Political Rivals
Earlier this week, the GST Council held its 56th meeting in New Delhi. Taxes have been revised on household products, cars, beverages and electronics amongst other items. For a student of political communication, this week has been fodder. The language used to describe these reforms has been nothing short of grand. “Landmark”. “Biggest ever since… Continue reading Observations From A Student of Political Communication
Rushing bills and rejecting discussions on issues of national importance have become the norm. For one full month — the entire Monsoon Session — Parliament was virtually washed out. Who created the logjam in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha? What left Opposition MPs with no option but to raise slogans and repeatedly… Continue reading Dear Union government, let Parliament function
Around 2,400 years ago, Greek philosopher Plato wrote The Republic, a discussion of the principles society ought to be governed by. Of the many concepts he introduced, one especially captured popular imagination and was later familiarised in the proverb “empty vessels make the most sound”. Several centuries later, far away from the Greece of 380… Continue reading Plato in Indian Parliament: Which Are The Empty Vessels Making The Most Noise?
The All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), the second largest Opposition parties in Parliament, decided not to nominate any of its members to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) being proposed to examine the Constitution (One Hundred and Thirtieth Amendment) Bill, calling the committee a ‘farce’. Here are three reasons why JPCs… Continue reading Why Joint Parliamentary Committees Are An Exercise In Futility
