March 2017
The Resource That Will Determine Our Future, Hindustan Times
The ecologist Jayanta Bandyopadhyay once wrote that water, not oil, was the resource whose availability and quality would determine India’s future. I recalled that remark when reading a report recently submitted to the Government of [...]
The Political Career Of Sonia Gandhi, The Telegraph
A line often quoted by columnists, and attributed to the British politician and writer Enoch Powell is this: ‘All political lives end in failure’. The full form of the quote reads: ‘All political lives, unless [...]
February 2017
Rediscovering One’s Land, The Telegraph
On the second day of 2017, I drove from the colonial hill station of Coonoor to the great old port city of Kochi. Thus began a month of almost continuous travel, in which I took [...]
January 2017
When Eleven Women Of Bengal Took On Gandhi, The Telegraph
While working in the archives of the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, I came across a fascinating letter to Gandhi, sent by eleven young women of Calcutta. The letter was undated, but it appeared to have [...]
The Best Player Not To Play For India, Hindustan Times
This winter India play thirteen Test matches at home. The last time they played so many was back in 1979-80, when two in three Indians now alive were unborn. This (to me) welcome superabundance of [...]
November 2016
A Contemporary View Of Nehru and Patel, Hindustan Times
My home town, Bengaluru, has the country’s best second-hand bookstores. For decades now, they have sustained me in a personal and professional sense, providing materials for my bed-time reading as well as rare documents for [...]