*** The “United India” rally in Calcutta, where 20 political parties stood on one stage on January 19, has understandably sent BJP and its bhakts, bots, trolls, media lapdogs, and …
By SHASHIKIRAN MULLUR What happened around me these last days? The traffic came back. The posters and hoardings showing the faces of our pretty politicians came back. (The use of …
*** “God’s Own Party” BJP keeps describing the JDS-Congress coalition in Karnataka as an “unholy alliance”, but H.D. Kumaraswamy has gone out of his way to seek the stamp of …
Like in a Tom & Jerry cartoon film, Kannadigas, fleeing their pursuers, ran furiously across the cliff—and tipped over. But, unlike in the hands of animators, where the cat defies gravity …
Janata Dal (Secular), the third bedfellow in Karnataka’s political harem, is in a piquant position with the result of the 2018 slugfest just a couple of torrid nights away. No …
Forget the “2+1” formula he hissed about in Santhemarahalli. Ignore the 15-minute “dare” he gave Rahul Gandhi while reminding him of his mother’s mother tongue. Or the paeans he sung …
During his recent whistle-stop tour of Kerala, Rahul Gandhi jumped out of his security cocoon and clambered on top of a police vehicle. But it is not just the Congress …
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 …
Kite-flying effortlessly replaces cricket as the nation’s favourite sport before every election, state or national, and so it is in the run-up to 2014, with “guided rumours” of Infosys co-founder …
Former Rajasthan Royals opening bowler S. Sreesanth has just been banned from cricket for life, for putting his hand-towel out of his pant pocket, as a signal to bookies that …
For over a decade starting in the mid-1990s into the early 2000s, Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy enjoyed a well-earned, larger-than-life, holier-than-thou persona through his various public interventions. As politicians, …
S. Sreesanth has only just gotten out of the clutches of Delhi’s hyper-efficient police for using a hand-towel tucked into his pyjama as a sign to his bookmaker friends that …
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: Tomorrow, May 8, is results day for the Karnataka assembly elections. Since I am not going to be in front of a camera, here …
The disgraceful nataka in BJP-ruled Karnataka has taken yet another farcical turn with the former chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa formally launching his own regional party, the Karnataka Janata Party, from …
Like a bad penny, the Cauvery “dispute” returns to the national discourse every few years with both the “riparian” States involved the story, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, making the same …
“Welcome to the Vidhana Soudha. If you are a Lingayat, press 1. If your are a Gowda , press 2. If you are a Kuruba, press 3. If you are …
In his first term as prime minister, Manmohan Singh was called plenty of names by the BJP and routinely reminded of being “weak” till it boomeranged in the 2009 elections. …
GAGAN KRISHNADAS writes from Bangalore: The centre for public policy at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B), recently organised a conference titled “Strengthening Institutions, Enhancing Governance”. It provided an …
Meanwhile, away from the heat, dust and sparks over the 2G scam and FDI in retail and the Lok Pal and Kanimozhi‘s release and whatever will fill up the “hour” …
Tamil Nadu has generally played a big role in the formation of coalition governments at the Centre for nearly 15 years now, and the size and scale of the victory …
BHAMY V. SHENOY writes: I was shocked to read a news item in today’s Deccan Herald—“If Gandhi were alive, he would have been corrupt: HDK”—in which the former chief minister, …
Ordinary mortals buy roses for their beau on Valentine’s Day. Sons of the soil buy TV news channels. Well, that’s what Bangalore Mirror, the tabloid from The Times of India …
As if more evidence was required to be proffered to the nation that the BJP’s disgraceful show in Karnataka is a daily dive from the pathetic to the ridiculous, the …
MATHIHALLI MADAN MOHAN writes from Hubli: Politics does not always pay. This perhaps is the bitter lesson that the political parties have learnt in the just-concluded panchayat elections. All three …
MATHIHALLI MADAN MOHAN writes from Hubli: When politicians as a tribe have failed the state, a quasi-judicial body like the River Water Disputes Tribunal has come as a saviour in …