'You can never say never in politics.' 'We may still see the return of AAP, but hopefully not of the same abusive politics again,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Imagine a situation where an upright officer refuses to carry out a chief minister's or a central minister's orders that he considers wrong.' 'Can he be summarily thrashed at a meeting at your residence, or in his own office?' 'If AAP legitimises political violence, there are many, many, tougher political leaders elsewhere to draw the wrong lessons,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
From banking reform to financial reconstruction, the bullet train, Navi Mumbai airport, choosing a new medium fighter aircraft to be made in India... time is running out for Modi. How could a leader as energetic and astute as Modi have left it for so late, asks Shekhar Gupta.
'Modi wants to reverse everything Nehru did, but is shy of touching his daughter's most unwise policies.' 'There is no example of this more stark than bank nationalisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'The middle class you can hurt anytime. For revenues, politics, pleasure, anything,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
If the Congress can simply go from 110 million to 130 million votes, it will yield a very different kind of NDA.
We tried our best to recover money from Vijay Mallya: Arundhati Bhattacharya
'Jignesh Mevani has many strengths: Youth, articulation, fearlessness, proficiency with social media, political and ideological flexibility.' 'Also focus, as in targeting the BJP as the one and only enemy for now and using that justification to align with the rest,' says Shekhar Gupta.
United States President Barack Obama is impressed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of the big things he wants India to achieve.
'The world wants India to succeed. It also worries now that India over-promises and under-delivers,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'N Ram and I met on the lawns of Mani Shankar Aiyar's bungalow.' 'I pulled out a rolled printout from my jacket and handed it to him.' 'In the cut-throat world of journalism, this was like high treason.' 'But letting a story be killed because you can't publish it is a bigger crime than passing it to the competition,' recalls Shekhar Gupta.
The question is no longer whether he will win 2019; it's what he will do with the new status, says Shekhar Gupta.
'If only Cariappa/Thimayya/Chaudhari/Manekshaw were given a free hand, there'll be no PoK, the Chinese would have been taught a lesson, 1965 would have slain the Pak demon and in 1971 just another fortnight's fighting after Bangladesh and West Pakistan would have been occupied.' 'No authoritative military account suggests anything remotely like any of these...' '...Chronologies, names, even periods get mixed up, but, never mind, because the point -- strong Army denied by cowardly Congress -- is made.' 'This is where Modi is coming from,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
'Is Ansari flagging a genuine concern? Is a rectification called for?' 'And finally: Do minorities matter?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
Modi may bet on old faces and new to boost reforms
Naresh Chandra was most certainly among the greatest patriots two generations of Indian strategists have seen.
'The Left is dying, but its economic ideology rules, unchallenged.' 'Modi is its newest standard-bearer.' 'Even in today's bitterly polarised politics, if there is one thing on which not just the BJP and Congress, but all other parties agree, it is that socialist economics is the only way to survive,' says Shekhar Gupta.
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Modi's political economy is more inspired by Indira Gandhi than Vajpayee.' 'She so wanted an Opposition-mukt Bharat.' 'Sounds familiar?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
It was never the quality of the CV that defined an incumbent's performance or legacy.
'The answer is no, the entire country's is.' 'So why such obsession with Delhi?' 'But the most powerful people in India live here: The prime minister, civil servants, Supreme Court judges, MPs, diplomats, dadas of the media...' 'If they can't deal with their own problem, what chance does the rest of the country have, with its foul air, dying rivers, frothing lakes, and crumbling mountains?' says Shekhar Gupta.
'We aren't so unreasonable as to demand that he should have fully reversed Indira Gandhi's worst economic legacy, bank nationalisation.' 'But he could have made a beginning by selling off the two most stressed small public sector banks, and then announced that each year for the next 10, one government bank with the most messed-up balance sheet will be sold.' 'It would have electrified the markets, shocked his other banks into better behaviour, and marked his name among the great reformers,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
The note ban is Modi's make-or-break gambit for 2019. Opposition leaders see a vulnerability and won't gift pre-eminence to the Congress, says Shekhar Gupta.
The ED has received documents from almost all banks that lent money to KFA.
'The BJP, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are celebrating their biggest ideological and philosophical victory in some time,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'One is forced to wonder whether Modi is serious about all the bills people want him to pass. Because to me he has made no real honest effort at getting things moving legislatively,' says Aakar Patel.
'The loose use of words like foreigner or Bangladeshis obscures the fact that the post-Partition migration to Assam has been of both Hindus and Muslims.'
'The UPA was never soft on Pakistan, terrorists and even China, but Sonia Gandhi's Congress rightly earned a "soft" image on issues of hard national interest, leaving the field open for Modi to take it and wrap it around with his implicit Hindutva,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'If you put colour-coded internal security maps of India in May 2014 and now, the picture won't be flattering to Modi.' 'Failures on internal security are now piling up and can break Modi's momentum,' says Shekhar Gupta.
A homoeopathic state of mind pervades our thinking in governance and infrastructure-building. Do it in small, harmless doses, but nothing bitter, sharp, or bloody, says Shekhar Gupta.
India isn't Israel, nor can it, or should be, says Shekhar Gupta.
I am only suggesting greater sensitisation and understanding of adults' sexual and lifestyle choices, says Shekhar Gupta.
Any settlement with Pakistan won't last unless it comes with big power guarantees, says Shekhar Gupta.
'For half a century, Delhi has not seen a truly powerful ruling party president.' 'The Cabinet, chief ministers, and even the heads of the most powerful departments and agencies now acknowledge where power lies, besides the prime minister's office,' says Shekhar Gupta.
While the judiciary remains our most trusted institution, it should debate its internal health, argues Shekhar Gupta.
The need of the hour is not a divisive, slanging match of accusations and counter-accusations, but a call for sanity,' says Vivek Gumaste.
The babas' vote banks and the politicians' greed for en bloc votes, is the curse of Punjab and Haryana.
From the Aadhaar verdict to #MeToo's arrival in the country to the entry into the Sabarimala temple -- India had a newsworthy 2018. As we step into 2019, these are the top moments from the year gone by.
'...a dazzling flash, and then, fizzle,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'They know it can embarrass them, as this surely isn't 1962.' 'They also know the moment they fire the first shot, all insecure powers in their front-yard, Australia to Japan and all the way westwards to India, will be brought together overnight, not something the deputy superpower wants,' says Shekhar Gupta.
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