RESEARCH

Local residents and police officers clear debris at a blast site in Malegaon, 29 September 2008 Photo courtesy: REUTERS M uch as the journalists may detest the forum for having encroached upon their exclusive right to comment on society, Orkut is where I have been getting instant gratification as a commentator the moment anything worth commenting upon happens anywhere in the world, since the days when I was banished from writing by my former employer, The Pioneer . I was not complaining as the forum called "Indian Politics" in which I wrote boasted of a membership strength of more than 21,000 back then whereas my employer's newspaper had a circulation of less than one-fourth the number. Also, I had to word my expressions far more carefully online as it had an overwhelming presence of good leftist writers who would otherwise protest instantly, unlike in a newspaper where I could happily ignore a couple of disagreeable responses to my article in the form of letters to the ...

Here's why Modi transferred, demoted, promoted and left untouched some of his ministers and MPs of BJP Continued from Part 1 Subramanian Swamy A transfer that would have been just short of a revolution was Arun Jaitley’s from the Finance Ministry. Accept it, no BJP supporter likes him. While the Subramanian Swamy camp makes no bones about their disapproval of Jaitley, supporters who are more loyal to Modi stay silent on his performance, camouflaging their disaffection for Jaitley with invectives showered upon Swamy like “he is a maverick”; “he was once with Jayalalithaa and then he went after her”; “he wrote an article against the RSS once upon a time”; “he was behind the Vajpayee government’s fall in 1999”, etc [Click on this link for Swamy’s rebuttals ]. Modi knows better than any of us what Swamy is. If it is not the 75 years age limit that went against Swamy, it is also a good idea to keep a rabble rouser out of ministries. This is not to say Swamy has no utilit...

Speculations are rife whenever journalists try to read the Prime Minister’s mind. In the last three days, as always, Modi drove them to their wit’s end just as he had the day before inducting his first council of ministers two years ago P rime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to have some fun, virtually challenging the media to read his mind for 48 hours. On 4 July, even as journalists had been speculating on the shape of the then impending Cabinet reshuffle, he told the Press that it would be an expansion drive, not a reshuffle. Hiding its disappointment, television channels ran tickers on the screen, relaying the announcement, and newspapers the next morning reported that the Cabinet would merely see some new appointments while no NDA MP was gaining or losing a job. With the swearing-in ceremony for the new appointees on 5 July, Modi appeared to keep his word initially. But as is a political commentator’s wont, tongues would wag with whatever information available. So, until the s...

M ost of the time, it is subtle. The teacher would make snide remarks about you as you pass through a corridor and, sometimes, even while a lecture session is on — if you do not happen to share the teacher’s political ideology. It is not necessary that you are affiliated to the ABVP or the teacher owes his/her allegiance to the CPM, CPI or CPI(ML)-Revolution. The professor might have been a communist when s/he was a student in JNU years ago, or the constant company of communist colleagues has had an influence on his/her mindset. Saying so, however, would sound no better than a right winger’s pet theory. So, let’s study some specific cases. The identities of the students will stay hidden — lest their careers should be affected. The names of the teachers must be told, however; or else this story will not be credible. Moushumi Basu is an Associate Professor and CIPOD’s coordinator with the Equal Opportunity Office (EOO) of JNU. Several students have heard her boa...

His strategy of playing the underdog and targeting high-profile rivals was sticking with the people until he turned out to be a serial liar T his man has gone mad. While “mad” is not a standard term in the lexicon of political commentators, I couldn’t find a more apt description for Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal based on his behaviour over the past month or two. First, the rabble-rouser who cleverly avoided even mild criticism of Narendra Modi at the formative stage of the Aam Aadmi Party, fearing it would alienate the masses, called the Prime Minister a “coward” and “psychopath”. Thereafter, the self-styled crusader against corruption trained his guns at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, following a CBI raid on the office of Rajendra Kumar, the Chief Minister’s principal secretary facing a hell lot of charges of corruption . Recall that a previous attack on Jaitley, where the AAP had accused him of horse trading , did not stick. Then, Kejriwal does not have the humility to ...