August 2010
A PROPHET ANNOUNCES HIMSELF, Times Literary Supplement
In the third week of September 1909, The Illustrated London News published a withering attack on the idea of Indian nationalism. Its author was G. K. Chesterton, who was then writing a weekly column for [...]
July 2010
AN INSTRUMENT OF THE SELF, The Telegraph
Every year, a music festival is held in Bangalore around Rama Navami. It takes place in Basavanagudi, in the heart of the old City, under a shamiana in the grounds of the Fort High School. [...]
JUSTICE AND THE ADIVASI, The Telegraph
In the summer of 2006, I travelled with a group of scholars and writers through the district of Dantewada, then (as now) the epicentre of the conflict between the Indian State and Maoist rebels. Writing [...]
June 2010
THE ECUMENICAL MARXIST, The Telegraph
The great German sociologist Max Weber once made an important distinction between universities on the one side and religious seminaries and political parties on the other. Seminaries and parties upheld a particular ideology, and made [...]
May 2010
THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE, The Telegraph
Thirty years ago, a Department of Environment was set up in the Central Government; twenty-five years ago, this was upgraded into a full-fledged Ministry of Environment and Forests. As we mark these anniversaries, it must [...]
TRAVEL TIPS FOR THE PRIME MINISTER, Hindustan Times
In seventeen years as Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru visited the United States on three separate occasions. Dr Manmohan Singh has been three times to the U. S. in the past year alone. Those on the [...]