MONDAY marked the 27th anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, a sombre day for India and for the family. Rahul Gandhi recalled how his father cautioned against hate because it becomes...

  YOU could have spotted, as I did, Mohammad Ali Jinnah in an official portrait at the Indian Muslim League’s headquarters in Kerala in the 1990s. I’m not sure if...

WE’LL destroy you. We’ll rain fire and fury on you. We will talk to you. We look forward to talking to you. We have forced you to talk to us....

Jawed Naqvi MAYAWATI is an Indian politician but she has a great message for Pakistan. Why? She has an excellent idea for all troubled democracies, not the least her very...

  YET again they were singing and reciting Faiz. Elsewhere they perhaps do the same with Sri Sri, Kazi Nazrul, Pash, Robin Ngangom or other revolutionary versifiers in different Indian...

IF one were to anchor a TV programme with the archival revelation that it was Benazir Bhutto who introduced Theresa May’s husband to the future British prime minister at an...

WAS Yuri Gagarin your hero, as he was to my generation? If so, you would remember how a competitive Kennedy sought to airbrush his feat, goading American space scientists to...

Jawed Naqvi “AND underneath her wimple/She has curlers in her hair/ I even heard her singing in the abbey.” The Maria song from Sound of Music — way before historian...

AS liberal dreamers go on the back foot in India and Pakistan, having reneged on their promise to deliver an open, equal and just society, it may not be unwise...

THIS has been a week of mixed intellectual fortunes for me thanks to the range of dramatis personae that were on view. Professor Romila Thapar on TV gave a scholarly...