The Varun Factor

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The Indian political environment has got expectedly sullied with pedestrian games , petty mud-slinging and almost downright filthy accusations flying around like nasty gad-flies. A sense of déjà vu , but, of course, it is the general elections of the world's largest democracy, so the colourful cacophony should have been expected. In the circumstances, it is best to summarise the pivotal issues in this summer of rising discontent: 1) Varun Gandhi has become the ultimate in the boomerang effect for the BJP. They thought they had acquired a powerful salvo against the Congress by usurping the disaffected family member from the famous clan, but the young man's verbal shenanigans have instead put BJP in a Catch-22 dock. Notice the conspicuous silence of LKA; the frown on his forehead is a sign that the crown is getting fast elusive. With the defiant BJP stubbornly insisting on fielding....

10 Qs For IPL Commissioner Modi

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IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi was at his trademark best, self-righteous, with a cocky countenance to boot when he announced yesterday that IPL-2 was being shifted to foreign shores. Just review his sanctimonious over-dose; " Integrity of the game", " toughest decision of my life", " it's not about money and profits", " it's about the people and the game of cricket" blah-blah. Now the problem with the man is that he has become such a motor-mouth on high trajectory on a steep incline, that even a momentary lapse has begun to cause a huge cascading fall. It happens ! Modi is experiencing the law of averages off-field what happens to a man in white on the 22 yard pitch. As expected, the IPL has become a political slug-fest; with NCP supreme Sharad Pawar at the helm of affairs , perhaps, that was somewhat inevitable. But what the BJP....

Meet Varun Modi

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He is the face of the new young India we talk about with such arrogant insouciance in business forums. He is amongst the few youth candidates being fielded by the BJP, obviously buttressed by that magical brand name, Gandhi. His family lineage is enviable. But it took just one speech, perhaps some more, to make Varun Gandhi , son of Maneka and late Sanjay Gandhi , one of the controversial yet defining personalities of elections 2009, his vituperative utterances against fellow Muslims echoing the kind of hatred we read about in those partition stories of 1947. 62 years have passed since the tri-colour first flew atop the Red Fort and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru made that famous midnight speech. But Varun , his great grand-son has just made his own tryst with destiny with his Pilibhit election speeches. It looks like a long hard dusty road for the fiery lad. ....

Third Front on a back-foot

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On Thursday in Karnataka (which saw the emergence of India's first prime minister whom nobody had heard of before) they announced the Third Front, a bland amalgamation of a cold broth consisting of multiple ingredients. I will leave the perfunctory and predictable analysis of this complex combine to conventional journalistic processes, and instead get straight down to bare facts----the naked truth: 1) The Third Front, remarkably enough, has found a common platform with just one month to go for the national elections. This is not just opportunistic, it is sheer desperation. These are political parties who are left-overs from failed alliances, and who are singularly drifting on their own life-boats. For instance, barring their tender gender, disproportionate assets and sheer unpredictability, what is the common thread between Madam Jaya and Madam Maya; please search me for answers. 2) The Third Front has no ideological basis whatsoever; nothing.....