Every agency connected with PM security must be held responsible
I do not remember if our security officers go to Israel, the US or UK for training. Israel has an...
Mandela on Tutu
The only time I met Archbishop Desmond Tutu was on 2.3.2005 in Cape Town. I spent a few minutes with...
Some thoughts on Jinnah
Whenever I am asked, ‘Who was the most successful pre-1947 Indian politician?’ my answer is ‘M.A. Jinnah.’ The date of...
In Warsaw, a brush with Bangladesh
No officer of the Indian Foreign Service will forget the horrific and murderous activities of the Pakistan army in East...
Breakfast with Evil: An essential read
Ashis Nandi takes on Satyajit Ray on his westernized Indianness and succeeds to plant doubts in the reader’s mind about...
Some thoughts on Mohan Bhagwat’s views
Does he really believe that Pakistan will ever agree to Partition being undone? Broadly speaking, I read the speeches and...
My tryst with Africa
Our committee came very low in the Ethiopian pecking order and did not merit a canine presence bigger than a...
Remembering Jawaharlal Nehru
I came into contact with Prime Minister Nehru when I was in my teens. The last time I met Pandit...
An authoritative book on China
Nirupama Rao’s book is over 600 pages long, deeply researched, scholarly, insightful and convincing. Nirupama Rao was born in 1950....
Great Hindu Civilisation is the work of an accomplished scholar
Pavan rightly takes Babington Macaulay to task, who knew nothing about India’s culture, the spiritual dimensions or its past. The...
Bhagat Singh’s letter to his father
On 4 October 1930, Bhagat Singh wrote to his father a breath-taking letter. Yesterday I finished reading, “Bhagat Singh: A...
Re-reading Ambedkar’s biography
B.R. Ambedkar had a razor-sharp intellect. With due respect, neither Nehru nor Patel can be included in the same intellectual...
Thinking of cricket in the time of IPL
The Australian PM introduced me to Bradman. I was surprised to note that he was only an inch taller than...
Re-reading Gandhi’s biography
For me the past week has been one of despair and disgust. To divert my mind from the prevailing political...
It’s over for Congress in Punjab
The mess in Punjab is self-inflected by the Congress. Among the states going to the polls early next year are...
PM spells out India’s Afghanistan policy
The PM was addressing virtually the SCO summit. It happened sooner than later. According to reliable sources, a few days...
Looking back at 9/11
For the first time in history the mainland of the United States had been attacked by unknown enemies. Where was...
India must have a presence in Kabul
Sooner rather than later we should reopen our embassy in Kabul. Afghanistan is no stranger to brutal turmoil, deadly violence...
Afghanistan’s future appears bleak
India is naturally very concerned at developments in Kabul in particular and Afghanistan in general. It is my hope that...
How India was born, in a matter of weeks
‘Here was a task which normally should have taken years to accomplish but which had to be compressed into the...
On Tagore, snippets from a scrapbook
I found several newspaper clippings relating to Tagore’s life and death in my childhood scrapbook. Rabindranath Tagore died in Calcutta...
India’s performance at Olympics frustrates
I watch the Games with considerable annoyance because of India’s dismal performance. I was the only Stephenian who got college...
A letter from Raja Rao
I first met him in New York in March 1963. Earlier I had reviewed his ‘The Serpent and the Rope’...
A letter from Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk was a dedicated Marxist who at the same time venerated Mahatma Gandhi. I had the good fortune to have...
