In cricket, we have something that we can share with our families, neighbours and indeed, the whole country. It is colour-blind, language-neutral, truly secular and transcends all regions, from Kashmir to Kerala and Mizoram to Maharashtra, explains Shreekant Sambrani.
No one deserves the title thespian more than Dilip Kumar, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
Dr Shreekant Sambrani pays tribute to M S Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist and a lifelong crusader against hunger who passed away in Chennai recently.
'Competence, experience, matter, did you say?' 'No music was sweeter than the mash of xenophobia, jingoism, racism, misogyny.' 'And the master busker to play the tune was round the corner to capture an eager audience just in the nick of time.' Shreekant Sambrani on the Trump Triumph a week after his upset victory.
The rising pitch of road shows and long rallies with hectoring pitches seem to have exhausted and numbed the audiences, rather than motivating them to vote for the party, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
The work of Norman Borlaug, who helped save billions from starvation, is worth recalling, especially as opposition to gene-modified crops mount, says Shreekant Sambrani.
Regional films may have prevailed over the country, but regional leaders still have far mountains to climb to reach Delhi, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
A lesson we have not learnt from China is the urgent need to knit the vast country together to keep it from falling apart at the seams. While there is considerable dent in poverty, sadly, the North East remains as distant today as it always was, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
The present happenings in Manipur are the wages of continued neglect, and not so benign at that, of a vital region and its people. Had we lavished on the North East even a fraction of the care and resources we do on Kashmir, things would not have come to this pass, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
Religion matters. Aspirational India is still poor. India admires strong leaders. India values decency. Shreekant Sambrani highlights the reasons why the BJP pulled off improbable victories in the Hindi heartland.
The Western world keeps talking, ratcheting up sanctions, the only thing it can do. The Russians march on to Kyiv and capture Zelensky and key members of his government as part of their 'de-Nazification' drive, predicts Shreekant Sambrani.
The Budget oration of the finance minister and the confidence with which she delivered it, along with the measures and the recent upsurge in the economy would all contribute to unleashing the storied 'animal spirits' and help the economy run on the growth path quite smoothly. Or so the government hopes, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
IPL can be truly said to have come of age. It is now more Indian than ever before. Teams often fielded fewer than the four allowed foreign players. Indian batters and bowlers were simply better in performance, consistency and reliability, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
We must heed what the CJI has said. Challenging every judgment of the central government is inviting chaos, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
With some variations, all regional political formations, whether in power presently or out of it, share some common features: Tight family control of the political apparatus, key members in elected or appointed positions, obvious wealth but not quite known sources of income, and family factionalism, sometimes open and bitter, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
The school was run on strict Gandhian lines, with stress on students doing things themselves. Physical comforts were minimal, in keeping with the relatively backward geographical area. But it had a staff of teachers dedicated to educating their students, not just imparting them book-learning, remembers Shreekant Sambrani.
Nobody bothered to articulate the upsides; instead, the four-year tour of duty and denial of life-long pensions got played up.
Job-seekers for government and related opportunities found that their future was at risk, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
Prime Minister Modi will continue to take the nation by surprise, catching his political opponents offguard, says Shreekant Sambrani.
This was the one Budget that required radical departures on all these fronts, when it had none, asserts, Shreekant Sambrani.
But Trump is about to announce his candidacy for president in 2024. And it is not clear if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the present hero of disenchanted Republicans, or Biden, who says he might seek re-election (but will decide in 2023), can checkmate Trump, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
His cricketing brain, always sharp, was blessed with exceptional speed of information absorption and processing. He could quickly zero in on what needed to be done and use the element of surprise to overpower the opposition, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Democracy is the heart of our body politic and elections are its life blood. Because there is some disease that affects it, we cannot apply leeches to drain it off, killing the body in the process, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
For the anti-apartheid icon, all life and struggle were occasions to be relished with joy, says Shreekant Sambrani
India is free, certainly, and has been so for 70 years. But are Indians free-spirited? asks Shreekant Sambrani.
Dr Mitra called the Pandara Road crowd a 'cheerful collective of young dreamers,' united in its 'love and pride for the newly Independent India,' despite 'sharp disparities in background, temperament and attitude.' Dr Shreekant Sambrani recalls his encounters with the legendary economist who passed into the ages.
'Let the high price of onions clear the market, matching supply with demand.' 'Let onion growers keep exporting -- we are the world's largest onion exporter, export 10% of our production,' advises Naushad Forbes.
The Budget would have been the perfect vehicle to introduce some bold initiatives.
That opportunity has been lost through this Budget, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
He played James Bond seven times. But the role Roger Moore most cherished was a different one.
Sharad Pawar reckons that the NCP has value as a united, going concern, not as a gaggle of leaders in search of followers, notes Shreekant Sambrani.
We used to hear of the Modi-Shah pair as the hyphenated top of the BJP leadership. Lately, the hyphen has disappeared and it is only Modi at the top. Yogi Adityanath gets honourable mentions, but he is still a good distance away from being anointed a worthy successor, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
'The American electorate are forced to choose between a shop-soiled spokesperson of crony establishmentarianism and an outlandish boor of a showman, who should never have been where he is now.'
Religion is but one trait where intolerance manifests itself. We come across 'chosen' races, communities, political ideologies, economic systems, all lending themselves to discriminatory arrangements, which trample the rights of those considered beyond the pale of whatever is the favoured calling.
Questioning the bullet train in view of the investment needed in Indian Railways is similar to saying that India needed to invest in primary education rather than in IITs, says Shreekant Sambrani.
The world seems to have caught severe pneumonia, or worse, as China had flu.
Mr Modi must now work to win over the governor as a friend and learn to influence people credibly.
Trump is the first nominee of a major party in over a century to have no experience whatsoever of any political, administrative or military office.
A 'soft' approach must be nurtured to complement the hard-line of spending billions in physical conflict; that is the only way to 'degrade and destroy' ISIS.
'The BJP currently occupies the centre stage of Indian politics, much the way the Congress did in the 1970s. That may be comforting to the party, but it could also be the road to perdition of easy self-congratulation and sycophancy.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced its imminent replacement in his Independence Day address, but the new name, structure and key personnel became known only a week ago.
