Andy Mukherjee – Bloomberg Gautam Adani’s rise to the No. 2 spot in global wealth rankings, crafted chiefly from shares traded in the local market, deserves to be in the spotlight – as much as a poster child of Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” self-reliance as an opportunity for some much-needed transparency about the tycoon’s… Read More The Publicity-Shy Funds Backing Gautam Adani’s Massive Empire
PRAVEEN SWAMI Forty-five annas worth of goods had vanished from the house in Katra Sheesh Mahal, nestled inside the lanes of Delhi’s Chandni Chowk: Kitchen utensils, women’s clothes, a hookah, and, mysteriously, a bowl of kulfi ice-cream. Late in 1861, Maeeduddin Yar Khan, son of Muhammad, walked into the Sabzi Mandi police station, one of three in Delhi,… Read More The Prime Minister wants India to shed its colonial past. He should begin by reforming the police
Aakash Hassan Indian people living near the country’s disputed Himalayan border with China have accused their government of giving away swathes of land after both sides agreed to withdraw troops from some contested areas and create buffer zones. Earlier this month, Indian and Chinese troops, who have been locked in a tense border dispute since June 2020,… Read More Indian government accused of ceding land in Himalayas to China
First posted on May 16, 2021 “The spectacle is the guardian of sleep”: Guy Debord – ‘But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence… illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be… Read More Society of the Spectacle / इमेज – Image: A Poem on Deaths in the Age of Covid
Apoorvanand One can only sympathise with the vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University when she denies the originality of her ideas to defend herself. When attacked for thoughts expressed during a lecture on BR Ambedkar and gender on August 22, she said in exasperation, “I am only a professor, not an original thinker.” Which meant… Read More Are professors not expected to be original thinkers? How the JNU VC has undermined her own role
Comedian Kunal Kamra’s scheduled show in Haryana’s Gurugram was called off following protests by the right-wing organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) Kamra was slated to perform for his gig on September 17 and 18 at Studio Xo Bar, however, it was ordered to be cancelled after the VHP filed a complaint with Gurugram’s district commissioner.… Read More Dare you to condemn Godse: Kunal Kamra’s letter to VHP after show gets cancelled
SHEKHAR GUPTA What Modi has been doing there is putting the monkey on the citizen’s back, by shifting the definition of the constitutional state from the government’s duties to the citizen. The rights, as Mahatma Gandhi said he’d tell you, will automatically follow. To understand this better, you need to Google the 42nd Amendment to… Read More Kartavya Path: ask not what Modi can do for you… ask what you can do for Modi’s India
HARTOSH SINGH BAL IN JUNE THIS YEAR, the Supreme Court dismissed charges of criminal conspiracy against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others in relation to the 2002 Gujarat violence. Immediately after the judgment, the Gujarat police arrested the activist Teesta Setalvad and RB Sreekumar, a former director general of the state police. Along with the former… Read More Infirm Logic: How the SIT report gave the Modi government a free pass on the 2002 violence
James Manor This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here. This looks like a golden era for the BJP. It is enjoying a decade in power at the Centre, it governs numerous states, and the… Read More Ruination of the BJP’s Organisation in 10 Steps
The absence of justice for the Maliana massacre is a blot on our democracy PRABHJIT SINGH It has been thirty-five years since 72 Muslims were brutally killed in the small town of Maliana, in Uttar Pradesh, during communal violence in Meerut district. Their families still await even the first glimmer of justice. The Maliana case,… Read More Standing Still
After the truth-shower 