Delhi Elections 2015: AAP good for the common man, Kiran Bedi will keep promises
By Christine Pemberton My biggest grouse is that I can’t vote today. I have known India for 30 years. I am married to an Indian. We lived in Delhi in the 1980s and then as...
View ArticleAnna may become Modi’s Achilles heel
The best way to conquer Anna Hazare would be to yield to him. Anna has sounded the bugle. He is launching an agitation from February 23rd in Jantar Mantar Delhi against the Land Acquisition Ordinance...
View ArticleLand Ordinance imbroglio: Making sense of the conundrum
The recently promulgated Land Acquisition Ordinance will be up for Parliamentary ratification in the forthcoming Budget session. With the Opposition parties taking strong and principled stance against...
View ArticleMurder most foul
With the uncouth manner of sacking of Admiral Ramdas by party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, even the pretence to any democratic ways are abandoned. Bhushan and Yadav termed the actions of Kejriwal to expel...
View ArticleSacking of Bhushan by AAP is a blessing in disguise
The country will benefit if Bhushan stays outside politics and continues his fight against the ills of politics. If all political parties are now on the same side, then who will keep them in check...
View ArticleAAP: The draining of hope
Hope can be a stubborn thing. In the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, hope can find a way to continue to believe in an idea that it holds dear. When challenged with unpalatable...
View ArticleMajor non-market events distract investors from strong sentiment-carrying...
By Ashok Banerjee & Kamran Quddus It was April 5, 2011, and Anna Hazare was on a hunger strike as part of the Jan Lokpal Bill agitation. The entire nation’s attention was on Hazare and...
View Article“We, the People of India”— The unwilling bankrollers of legislative logjams
At the outset, I would appeal to readers to be open-minded. While it is legitimate to like a certain political leader or party, others who may choose to not align themselves to any political leader...
View ArticleWhen the boot is on the other foot
The raids on Delhi chief minister’s principal secretary and earlier, the National Herald case, once again reveal that the CBI should be made not only truly independent of the ruling party but also...
View ArticleWhy Lokpal eludes India 30 months after Parliament passed a historic law
On a typically cold winter day in December 2013, a frail-looking Anna Hazare broke his fast as Parliament ended years of dithering and passed a law to appoint a watchdog for punishing corrupt lawmakers...
View ArticleDo not misuse Lokpal Act to harass NGOs
An anti-corruption agitation by NGOs in 2011 forced the government to enact a law setting up a lokpal. In an outrageous twist, the government now seeks to use that same Lokpal Act to harass NGOs...
View ArticlePower drunk Kejriwal
In 2010, when the UPA Government had drafted the first Lok Pal Bill, it came under severe attack from IAC who called it the Jokepal. One evening, I received a call from Shri Oscar Fernandes,...
View ArticlePolicing Corruption
I live in Bangalore. The other day, a couple of young police constables visited my residence for some verification purposes related to company law formalities. In the course of our conversation, I...
View ArticleThe Thirty-Nine Steps: why Modi has to worry about recency
In business, especially in human-resource management, appraisers are cautioned to evaluate an individual’s or department’s performance over a sustained period and not let ‘recency’, the most recent...
View ArticleThe meltdown
A narrative based on bluster and falsehood cannot last very long. Surprisingly, this one lasted as long as it did. Arvind Kejriwal’s ‘sincere apology’ to Bikram Jit Singh Majithia, Arun Jaitley and...
View ArticleWill the Lokpal finally be set up just before the elections?
The idea of an ombudsman was first debated in Parliament 56 years ago, and that the Lokpal Bill was introduced nine times since 1968, until the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act of 2013 came into effect on...
View ArticleLokpal: Myth to conception to birth to operational reality
After all the din and hallabulloo, we finally have the beginnings of an operational Lokpal. Since institutional memory in India is short, it is important to remind ourselves that those who most...
View ArticleElections a la Bollywood Razzmatazz?
Sophie, a friend of mine just landed from Paris and is on a tour of India. Having got attracted to yoga, she has been travelling the length and breadth of the ashrams in India —...
View Article‘One tight slap’: What makes Indian politics so thappad-happy
Democracy is supposed to be a way of settling differences without violence. And yet, tight slaps, and threats of tight slaps, seem to be a big part of this election’s soundtrack. Let’s look at the...
View ArticleDon’t make doctors the fall guy for India’s poor healthcare
When I was in school, many of my friends prepared for entrance exams. For science students back then, and perhaps even now, medicine and engineering were the most popular options. I chose engineering....
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