The more I look back I get angry. But that's not the problem. The problem is that my anger quotient increases manifold as I visualise what's happening and what lies in the future. Because then I see the eulogies pouring in, dollops of adjectives thrown in generously. I know many of you will castigate me for tearing apart a man who has just passed away. But unfortunately, Jyoti Basu, the Communist patriarch, will remain for me a man who killed two generations of Bengal's talent. And paved the way for the demise of a land which held much promise for the country. A man who presided over Bengal's industrial decline (my editor calls it an industrial wasteland), a man who enforced an education system where millions of students learnt "A, B, C, D" after six years of schooling, a man who ensured Bengal's brain-drain and led to the economic marginalisation and decline of the state - Basu did not just attempt a stranglehold...

It's not surprising that a renewed Naxalite movement in India started as the country was marching on the highway of globalisation. In Bengal though, it was coupled with the potent mixture of a 33-year-long Communist rule, which reaped the benefits of one-time land reform programme in repeated elections, but failed to cling on to its pro-poor image. But for a CPI-M led Left Front government, that continued their rule just three years back with a thumping election victory, things started going wrong with Singur and Nandigram. In Singur, the government gave agricultural land to TATA for making the Nano at a throwaway price; in Nandigram, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's police force killed innocent villagers, protesting land acquisition, in broad daylight, ripping apart the pro-poor Communist image. It was a question of land after all. That's how it had started back in the late 60s. The movement, which began as a violent peasant resistance to landlords at Naxalbari village in May 1967 on the basis of...

I, Kamal Nath, do swear in the name of god, that it has become a habit (being a minister). I, Kamal Nath, do swear in the name of god, that I was in a hurry. I, Kamal Nath, do swear in the name of god, that I have always considered PP Patil as, well, you know...one of us (Hand on heart). I, Kamal Nath, do swear in the name of god, that I even forgot to put my autograph on the dotted lines. I, Kamal Nath, had reverence spilling out of the clasped hands for my supreme leader. Swear, aye countrymen, in the name of god. This was Rashtrapati Bhavan, in between 18.30 and 20.30 on Friday evening. Happy hours. Ministers swearing, in name of god or solemnly. And in walked Amar Singh 10 minutes before Happy Hours started. Amar 'who'. Amar 'the saviour of Dr Manmohan Singh' last year, in July. Today Singh is King. So Amar and Mulayam limped ahead,...

Two decisions taken last week have ensured that Bangladesh's tryst with democracy continues. One was taken on February 25, within hours of the bloody mutiny by the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) erupting on the streets of Dhaka and leaving more than 70 senior army officers dead. The country's new civilian government decided to intervene and politically negotiate with the mutineering BDR soldiers who had taken control of the headquarters and held senior officers hostage. Barely two months after she was elected with a overwhelming mandate, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stepped in and engaged the mutineers in a successful carrot-and-stick strategy for the next 24 hours. In a country with a history of coups, the army - which had already rolled out tanks on the streets of Dhaka - was kept at bay. But it's doubtful whether Hasina's efforts would have yielded much if one man had not played along and hadn't taken an equally vital decision. Bangladesh army chief General Moeen U. Ahmed didn't disappoint....