Mumbai registered their first victory of the season, thrashing Odisha by 120 runs in a Ranji Trophy Group 'C' match at KIIT Stadium, in Bhubaneshwar, on Saturday.
'And who sold this belief?' 'Public-spirited individuals' like Subramanian Swamy.' 'Independent public servants' like Vinod Rai. 'Anti-corruption activists' like Kiran Bedi. And 'outspoken television anchors' like Arnab Goswami,' says Mihir S Sharma.
'A one party-State, with only one kind of Indian,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
'The link between global warming and weird, extreme weather events is being better understood every year.' 'India is particularly at risk from such events.' 'Indian communities and urban centres don't have the resilience needed to survive such disasters,' says Mihir S Sharma.
The stock market, the Survey felt, had run away from underlying real economy indicators and asked if this indicated rational confidence or irrational exuberance.
'The mainstream media is alive with discussion of the rights and wrongs of the situation.' 'Mass immolation is being rediscovered as a worthy goal for young women, and we have also consoled ourselves at length with the reflection that Muslims Are Bad while Rajputs Are Good,' says Mihir S Sharma.
'Should views such as Damore's be ignored, stigmatised, or corrected, point by point?' asks Mihir S Sharma.
'The simple truth is this: That we had come to assume that a second term was Modi's for the asking. But the fact is that Modi will have to win one, just like everybody else.' 'And so much has he invested in his strongman persona that even a loss of just 50 seats from his extraordinary 282 in 2014 will look to his potential allies and to his party like a defeat,' says Mihir S Sharma.
What does Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee thinks about India's education sector?
'It is important whenever such accusations arise to provide whatever support we can to the accusers who, with inspiring bravery, have decided to take on men far more powerful than they are,' says Mihir S Sharma.
Advice to the new finance minister from former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan: 1. Clean up banks by reviving projects that can be revived after restructuring debt. 2. Improve governance and management at public sector banks. 3. De-risk banking by encouraging risk transfers to non-banks and the market. 4. Reduce the number and weight of government mandates for public sector banks, and for banks more generally.
Internal to Aadhaar itself, within the very design and usefulness of the project, lies the division between the clashing images of India.
'It goes without saying that Air India has now no imaginable reason to exist.'
'Hitchens asked which State Israel had most in common with -- and then answered his own question, saying "Pakistan".' 'They were both, he explained "confessional States": Founded to succour the followers of a particular faith,' remembers Mihir S Sharma.
'The bloodthirsty rhetoric of chicken-hawk TV anchors are the worst contributors to Kashmiri alienation.' 'If this implacable hatred is the authentic voice of India, Kashmiris argue, who can hope for peace?' asks Mihir S Sharma.
'For a party with a fuzzy ideology, one that lives only for power, having a leadership that thought vaguely about returning to power in the distant future was a distinct handicap,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Apple products are built around the notion of picking up ideas that are already common, reducing them to brightly-coloured, child-like simplicity, imposing conformity, and then suggesting that buying into that conformity means you're a seriously cool adult, says Mihir S Sharma.
The failure to reform has meant that there is no buzz about job opportunities, or about urban opportunities enticing young people off the farms. And it is this failure that has contributed to the widespread disappointment that threatens to make the next general elections closer than expected, says Mihir S Sharma.
A round-up of Ranji matches played on Sunday
Instead of failing young Indians, the government should now focus laser-like on education, skilling, healthcare, and the environment, says Mihir S Sharma.
'The problems the rest of the world is struggling with -- the future of work, expectations from government and business in a world without jobs -- will be solved in India, by young Indians, before anyone else,' says Mihir S Sharma.
The flawed response to the crisis has fed a us-vs-them mentality in which the banker, the expert, the coastal entrepreneur, the immigrant, the foreigner are all villains. The crisis was not that much of a problem; the response -- the over-reaction, the sovereign debt build-up and the lasting anger -- is the problem, says Mihir S Sharma.
A round-up of all the Ranji Trophy matches played on Monday
'If tempers all over the country are so fragile that they can be lost because a couple of film stars give their child the same name as a 14th-century warlord, exactly what sort of compromises can be palatable,' asks Mihir S Sharma.
Don't let people with repugnant ideas abrogate your rights by taking advantage of your commitment to free speech, observes Mihir S Sharma
You have to really bungle to produce 5.7 per cent growth under the conditions this government is currently facing, says Mihir S Sharma.
Cheteshwar Pujara surpassed Vijay Merchant's record for the most double hundreds by an Indian in first-class cricket -- a record that stood for almost 70 years. A roundup of Day 2 of the Ranji Trophy matches on Thursday.
Books like Sunil Khilnani's Incarnations: India in 50 Lives, simple and straightforward though they appear, are instead powerful arguments for complexity, for empathy, and for curiosity
Owing to their first innings lead, Bengal grabbed three crucial points against Haryana after their Group A Ranji Trophy match ended in a draw at the CH Bansi Lal Cricket Stadium, Lahli on Monday.
The government must realise that it has very little time to recover itself, its reputation, its legacy - and India's fortunes,says Mihir S Sharma.
Ashish Hooda scalped four wickets for 39 runs in an impressive pace bowling spell as Haryana came back into their Ranji Trophy Group 'A' match against Bengal on the third and penultimate day, in Lahli, on Sunday.
It is too late in the government's term for it to pull its usual trick of blaming the last guys.
The narrative in America after Donald Trump's victory sounds like the questions and debates that took place in India after May 2014. Were both electoral results all about jobs and economic anxiety? Mihir S Sharma doubts it.
That US is losing one of its best-read presidents, and will gain one of the least likely to have ever read a book. Does that matter? Mihir S Sharma explains why it should.
There are two national political parties in India, but only one of them seems to be any good at politics, says Mihir S Sharma.
It is far from clear that this GST will have the silver bullet effect that the "pure" GST would have provided, says Mihir S Sharma.
'There is no difference morally between politicians scoring points amid the rubble and non-politicians who assume that politics and corruption necessarily had something to do with it,' says Mihir S Sharma. 'Both are twisting a tragedy to their own ends.'
'Who would want to be the man nominally in charge of driving the economy when your boss orders you to swerve it into a ditch of unknown depth?'
'Demonetisation demonstrates that this government is simply too amateurish in terms of economic policy-making to properly address India's deep, deep problems,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
India is failing to take advantage of its important ally, Japan as much as it should, notes Mihir S Sharma.
Outside Diggi Palace's walls, things may be getting darker. Speech may be under threat; writers may be getting murdered for their writing. But, inside, it is possible to feel hope that ideas, nevertheless, may have their own power, says Mihir S Sharma.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances