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CHURUMURI POLL: Could Jayalalitha be PM?
Counting the chickens before they are hatched, is a familiar human frailty. And, as elections draw near with intimations of the mortality of the Congress-led UPA, there are many who …
Sachin Tendulkar is so sweet you can eat him up
A life-size cake of the only cricketer in the solar system to win a Bharat Ratna, made of sugar, cream and eggs, at the annual Christmas-eve exhibition at St. Joseph‘s …
A BIAL by any other name is still a hideous KGIAL
Some of India’s most inanimate public structures have seen massive sex-change operations in the post-colonial age: Lady Willingdon‘s park became Lodi Gardens in New Delhi; Queen Victoria terminus became Chattrapati …
A private zoo owner climbs up Forbes celeb pole
Celebrities live in a strange and nearly unbelievable age of make-believe, where often times bad news is good news. For all their cinematic talent and box-office success (and, on top …
A ‘strong state’ isn’t what you think it should be
India often attracts the epithet of a “soft state“, whenever it is seen by right-wing and conservative hawks and hotheads as acting “weakly” on Pakistan, terrorism, China, Maoism, etc. But …
From Bindiganavile to Jind via Central Asia
Where is hometown in the world of elastic geographies? What is mother tongue in the era of mixed parentage? In this, the first chapter from his new book, Homeless on …
How the Maharajas shaped Mysore & Mysoreans
The rest of democratic India that is Bharat—indeed, the rest of Karnataka that is not Mysore and Bangalore—will not understand the fuss over the passing of Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar, the …
Not yet MP, could Nandan Nilekani become PM?
On December 8, as the results of the assembly elections in the four States showed that opinion polls are not always wrong, and as the clamour for clarity on the …
Wodeyar got more than what he leaves behind
As Mysore observes a spontaneous bandh, as plebs and celebs spill platitudes, as newspapers and TV channels plunge into panegyrics, Dr Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi of the department of history …
Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar: RIP
churumuri records with deep regret the passing away of Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar, the scion of the erstwhile royal kingdom of Mysore, in Bangalore on this the 10th day of December, …
‘Push down the Haughty, push up the Humble’
The elevator implosion of Tarun J. Tejpal and the plight of Tehelka as a result have been discussed ad nauseam after the first emails were leaked on 20 November. But …
The market, media, and the great dumbing down
As the TV channels go through the same motions in an election season—predictable opinion poll by predictable pollsters, followed by predictable panel discussion with predictable panelists and predictable cliches, followed …
A worthy contender in era of Android and iOS
Will the print medium survive the digital age, is a question that is almost entirely viewed through the prism of newspapers and magazines. But there are other uses of printing, …
The four forms of Indian political populism
Mukul Kesavan in The Telegraph, Calcutta: “Populist politics in India is of roughly three sorts: majoritarian, Mandalist and Congressite. Narendra Modi’s populism is clearly of the first sort. His appeal …