Rahul Gandhi‘s coronation speech as Congress’ vice-president gave clear hints that while he may have been officially or emotionally designated as Number Two, he would be the de-facto Number One. His mother, Congress President, Sonia Gandhi will be the patron, who would love to see him exercise all powers that lakhs of Congress workers had bestowed upon […]
In rare moments of earnestness, Rahul Gandhi has in the past confessed to a keenness to “work his way out of a job,” so to speak. The Congress party, which is something of a Nehru-Gandhi family heirloom, privileges people like himself, who belong to the First Family of Indian politics, but he himself was working […]
When the controversial Indian politician Narendra Modi sailed to reelected victory last month in regional elections in Gujarat, it was difficult to find anyone who didn’t have the urge to cry. Some shed tears of joy and others of despair, but any reaction in between was rare. Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya […]
NARENDRA MODI, the burly chief minister of Gujarat, is on a roll. On December 20th he won a third successive state election. Though the tally for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fell slightly, from 117 seats in 2007 to 115, his victory was emphatic, a triumph more for Mr Modi than for his party. Nobody […]
Last week, Narendra Modi, a deeply polarizing Indian politician, led his party to a third consecutive election victory in the western state of Gujarat, which he has led for more than a decade. Though regional contests in the country are usually of little interest to outsiders, Mr. Modi’s win is significant because it sets him up as […]
Indian democracy is governed by cold hard calculation, not hype or mere moralism. It does not offer the comfort of unalloyed virtue or simple ideological shibboleths. It is not swept up in waves where power rolls on unchallenged. Even amidst great triumphs, there are reminders of the fragility of power. Both the BJP and the […]
India‘s Gujarat state will hold a potentially game-changing vote on Thursday that could help decide whether Chief Minister Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, becomes India’s next prime minister. If, as many polls predict, Modi wins a fourth term as chief minister of the state, he is expected to project himself as […]
Indeed, enthusiasm for India in Washington may wax or wane over the next four years, but arguably this will depend less on who occupies the White House than on who occupies the prime minister’s residence at 7 Race Course Road. Over the past two years, faced with a global slowdown and a lack of reforms, […]
AS WITH comedy, timing matters when delivering a political punchline. On October 28th India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, at last reshuffled his cabinet. It was long overdue, made necessary by the departure in September of a coalition ally, and more generally by the growing sense, over several months, of a government adrift: dominated by aged […]
Salman Khurshid was India‘s new external affairs minister as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday effected a major revamp of his council of ministers, inducting 22 faces, including seven of cabinet rank, in what is said to be the last major ministerial shuffle before the 2014 general elections. Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi did not join […]
looking beyond borders 