July 2009
THE GLOBALIZING GERONTOCRACY, Hindustan Times
In the sixty years since Independence, there have been three periods in which India has faced serious challenges in the sphere of foreign policy. In the late 1940s, we were being asked to take sides [...]
May 2009
NEHRU IN A NOVEL, The Hindu
Arguably the best single-volume study of India’s first Prime Minister is Nehru: A Contemporary’s Estimate, by the Australian diplomat Walter Crocker. This is a book that I have long known (and admired). However, when I [...]
NEHRU IN A NOVEL, The Hindu
Arguably the best single-volume study of India’s first Prime Minister is Nehru: A Contemporary’s Estimate, by the Australian diplomat Walter Crocker. This is a book that I have long known (and admired). However, when I [...]
CITIES WITHIN A CITY, The Hindu
Delhi is a city I have known all my life. I first knew it from the perspective of a little boy growing up in a mofussil town in north India, who entered a world all [...]
April 2009
NO GLOATING, SCAPEGOATING, Hindustan Times
Every year, in November, the American magazine Newsweek departs from its focus on current events to publish a special number which examines national and regional trends that cannot be slotted within the weekly cycle of [...]
March 2009
HOW TO RETIRE, The Hindu
It was a fellow writer, Achal Prabala, who called to tell me that Premier Bookshop was closing down. ‘Mr Shanbhag seems quite determined’, said Achal: ‘The landlord is giving trouble again. He has to undergo [...]