June , 2008
Separated at birth
| 10 |  |
|
 |
The state of the UPA government is a bit a like a bad old Ajit joke about liquid oxygen: liquid usse jeene nahi deta, oxygen usse marne nahi deta (liquid doesn't let it live, oxygen doesn't let it die). Substitute uranium for liquid oxygen and Prakash Karat in the role of Ajit and the plight of Manmohan Singh's government is apparent. The Indo-US nuclear deal may have been the cause of the latest flashpoint, but the reality is that the Left-UPA relationship has long since reached the point of no return. Perhaps, the astonishing part is that it's taken as long as four years for the realisation to dawn that the UPA-Left equation was perhaps untenable to begin with. Flashback to the CPI-M manifesto for the 2004 General Elections. While the BJP was projected as "enemy number one", there was harsh criticism of the Congress too. Claiming that the....
Who will be India's Obama?
| 462 | |
|
|
In the week when 46-year-old Barack Obama was being anointed the Democratic party's presidential candidate in the United States, Tamil Nadu's chief minister M Karunanidhi was being felicitated on his 85th birthday. While Obama made a stirring speech in front of hundreds of cheering young Americans, the DMK patriarch mumbled a few words on stage in the company of his two sons, MK Stalin and Azhagiri, both jostling to be heir-apparents to their ageing father's legacy. The contrast could not have been more stark: in America, Obama represents "change" and "equal opportunity", a charismatic Afro-American Harvard-educated lawyer who has risen up the political ladder through merit and hard work. In India, Karunanidhi and sons are symbols of a static order, where a political party is a family business and where the top posts are closed for talented outsiders. Obama is the man from nowhere, throwing open the doors....
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.
Recent Posts
Archives
displayed with permission. Use of the CNN name and/or logo on or as part of CNN-IBN does not derogate from the intellectual property rights of Cable News Network in respect of them.