April , 2008
Aaj Ka Arjun
Eighteen years can be an eternity in politics: on the 6th of September, 1990, a stirring speech was made in parliament criticizing the Mandal commission report. "If you believe in a casteless society, every major step you take must be such that you move towards a casteless society. And you must avoid taking any steps which takes you to a caste-ridden society. Unfortunately, the step we are taking today in accepting the Mandal report, is a caste formula. While accepting this reality, we must dilute that formula and break it by adding something to it. Even at this late hour, there is time to pull the country back from caste division. ministers are provoking caste wars. Are we going back to the Round Table Conference for having separate electorates? That was designed to break our country.. An issue like reservation cannot be treated in a piecemeal manner. We must....
Rivals, not enemies
Life in exile can be a sobering, as well as a gastronomic experience. Within weeks of the 2004 general elections, I happened to be in Jeddah and was taken to the palatial home of then exiled Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Over endless cups of Kashmiri kahwa, an exotic range of kebabs and generous portions of gajar halwa, the epicurean Sharif was moved to remark: "I truly am amazed by your democracy. I just saw a show on Indian television where all your former prime ministers were attending a function and smiling at each other. Look at us: In Pakistan, once you are out of power, you are either thrown into jail, or pushed into exile!" Four years later, the wheel has turned dramatically: While Sharif and his arch enemy Asif Ali Zardari, whom he once imprisoned, exchange bear hugs and power sharing agreements, in India, our political rivals....




More about Rajdeep Sardesai
Rajdeep Sardesai is the Editor-in-Chief, IBN18 Network, that includes CNN-IBN, IBN 7 and IBN Lokmat. He comes with 22 years of journalistic experience during which he has covered some of the biggest stories in India and the world. Prior to setting up the IBN network, he was the Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for six years and was the city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26. During the last 22 years, he has covered major national and international stories, specialising in national politics. He has won numerous other awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters Award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for 2007. He has won the Asian Television Award for best talk show for the Big Fight on two occasions and his current flagship show on CNN-IBN, India at 9, has been awarded the best news show at the Asian awards for the last two years. He has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy for seven of the last eight years and won more than 50 awards in this period. He has also been the President of the Editors Guild of India, the only television journalist to hold the post and was chosen a Global leader for tomorrow by the world economic forum in 2000. An alumni of St Xavier's College, Mumbai, he has done his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and has also played first class cricket for the Oxford University team. He has contributed to several books and writes a fortnightly column that appears in seven newspapers.



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