“Swagat hai mere dost! Why did it take so long? We have been waiting for you for 70 years,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Narendra Modi when the latter visited Israel in July last year. Netanyahu was right. It took 70 years after Independence for an Indian prime minister to set foot on Israel, and […]
Articles
PM Modi and Amit Shah knew Gujarat challenge, what to deploy and when
Winning elections has become an art and a science these days. It is no longer just about the traditional ways of campaigning, casteism and cash. Democracy, right from the days of Herodotus, is, no doubt, the will of the people. But the ways of ascertaining the will of the people, or rather moulding their will, […]
The Beauty of Indic Thought
A profound quest for eternal bliss that is yet to take its rightful place in the world Indic thought is the most liberal that the world has ever produced. This is because it is the most democratically evolved of all. It is a product of the deep contemplation of great sages and saints, their great […]
Can we all get along? We should all stand up against violence in the name of the sacred
It was the year 49 BC and a general in northeast Italy, Gaius Julius, took the momentous decision to cross a shallow river called the Rubicon to march into the city of Rome. Roman law forbade entering the city of Rome with armies. Julius’s action led to a civil war and eventual conquest of the […]
For BJP, Ram mandir movement a one-way street
Sometime in the mid-1980s, the then RSS chief Balasaheb Deoras had asked the assembled leaders of the organisation from all the states a simple question: “Should the RSS plunge fully into the Ram Janmabhoomi movement or allow it to be led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas (the body of saints […]
The Latest Pejorative of the Elite – OPEN Magazine
Populist’ is the chosen word of invective for a section of the intellectual elite these days. From newspaper articles by out-of-business columnists to platforms like the World Economic Forum, the buzz everywhere is about populism. Gone are the days of a hue-and-cry over socialism versus capitalism or secularism versus communalism. India’s people have seen through […]
Coming full circle at 70
This Independence Day is different. For the first time in 70 years, the high constitutional positions are all held today by individuals subscribing to a non-Congress ideology. When NDA 1 was in power, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat became the vice president and Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister. But this time around, the president, vice president and prime […]
A Movement Revisited
The independence struggle as a narrative of the highs and lows of our national will The revisiting of history keeps happening. There are a couple of reasons why one revisits history time and again. One reason, of course, is that we get newer information as time passes. When we chance upon a new document or […]
The meaning of de-hyphenation
“We have been waiting for you, Prime Minister!” When I heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel say this to our Prime Minister at Ben Gurion airport, a three-year-old meeting between the two at a New York hotel flashed across my mind. It was September, 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was making his maiden visit to the […]
Like a bee gathers honey – Goods & Services Tax
GST will reset the basic rules of taxation. It is an illustration of PM Modi’s transformative reforms. Modi is on a transformative agenda, the fruits of which will be borne by this nation in a few years’ time. He is setting India’s basics right with a futuristic vision. The PM has quoted Chanakya in his […]