Matching talent with jobs should not be a problem in Indian politics. In fact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is spoilt for choice, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray
Sheikh Hasina should draw a veil over the nation's blood-soaked past, moderate her quest for justice and resolve the dilemma of the Bengali and Muslim identities, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray
Commerce came before politics for an East London Jew who started out when he was just 21 with a stall in the Well Street Market in Hackney.
Kolkata Knight Riders' IPL triumph allowed chief minister Mamata Banerjee merrily to fob people off with a circus when what they need is bread.
In the US as in India, policy outcomes are linked to election funding
Journalists who engage in influence peddling should be listed as lobbyists, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
Though he called his autobiographical novel Insider, P V Narasimha Rao was forever the Outsider. In death even more than in life, writes Sunanda K Datta-Ray
This Muri Ghonto recipe has its origins in former East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh.
Driven by hardship, adventurous souls mortgage their homesteads in Punjab or Haryana, pawn the family jewellery and borrow heavily to satisfy the greed of the criminal traffickers who organise their trips, points out Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Perhaps it isn't protocol at all, but power before which we abase ourselves,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
An insistence on only one language will inevitably be resented as a form of imperialism and resisted.
Ataturk and Nehru, two liberal secular modernisers, are in peril of being disowned by their successors, says Sunanda K-Datta Ray.
Even a rump Air India could not hope to get away with the shoddy service and scrappy fare for which I paid nearly two lakh, complains Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
They will fawn over a prize catch who has brought a rich dowry of Gwalior-Chambal politicians. But in the end, all BJP members are prajas of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The BJP's message is that the past must be reinvented as creatively as imagination allows, states Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'The norm will be even less public accountability, even less transparency, tweets instead of press conferences, TV lectures rather than parliamentary debate, and greater political authoritarianism,' predicts Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
China will flood direct flights to India with wholesale takeaways of the authentic stuff; Indian businessmen will fight for the commission and the consumers for the cuisine, predicts Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'London being Tier 2, pubs can serve drinks but only with a 'substantial meal',' sighs Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'India shares the world's pain, but India's pain is not the world's.' 'Little that occurs here is even reported abroad,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Everybody knows that any solution would upstage and expose official bungling.' 'That is something Mrs Sitharaman's masters will not allow.' 'No matter how high the cost in human misery, they will squander a fortune on the unnecessary Central Vista extravaganza,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
We may be witnessing a slow erosion of the democratic republic and the emergence of the police State, warns Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Whatever the legal position, it is my understanding that in practice, the Indian authorities have always treated Hindu refugees from Pakistan and Bangladesh far more sympathetically than Muslims,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Lee Kuan Yew told me he used to look to India, especially the writings of Nehru and Sardar Panikkar, for guidance on governance.' 'It's ironic that India should have so much to learn of the spirit of democracy from his son,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
When 17 million Indians seek their fortune abroad it only means people are losing faith in the government's ability to honour its promises, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The bear hug in which the Prime Minister loves to smother Western VIPs might strike as theatrical, boastful and, above all, unhygienic, in these stricken times, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The ultimate was surely Yudhishthira's immortal "Aswathama hatha...", followed by a whispered "iti narova kunjarova..."," says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Nowhere amidst the efflorescence of 13 military bands, 16 marching contingents and 22 tableaux was there any hint that far from being a rich country of poor people, the closely guarded secret is that India is a poor country of extremely rich people,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
The colour has been rendered to activities that would have astonished Swami Vivekananda, says Sunanda K Datta Ray.
'The question now is how long the exercise in perfection he created will last once his influence isn't there any longer,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
I can't see what purpose can be served by an apology by a British government that cannot in any way be blamed for one sadistic man running amok 100 years ago, argues Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'George Fernandes was an innocent among the cut-throats and pickpockets who infest the political jungle.' 'He was too good a man to achieve spectacular success in the game of thrones,' notes Sunanda K Datta Ray.
'The fruition of Nobel's hope lies in the response of a caring government that can rise above politics and propaganda, not in the frenetic raptures of a public that worships fame for fame's sake,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'This country's backwardness is exposed when Indians bribe, coax and cajole agents to get back-breaking jobs abroad to save a little money at home,' observes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'As she was dragged off the yacht, the princess cried, "I won't go back to the UAE, just kill me now!"' 'She hasn't been heard of since then.' 'Perhaps she is dead.' 'If so, Modi's government has blood on its hands,' notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
Money permits patronage. Money means power. No wonder details of the crores locked up in NPAs and never repaid loans are top secret, Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Sachin Pilot once calculated that with a million Indians flooding the labour market every month, only an additional 12 million jobs annually could keep unemployment at the same level.' 'That's chickenfeed for the functionaries who cram my e-mail inbox every day with such a constant flow of job offers that trying to empty it is like trying to drink dry the horn connected to the ocean in Norse mythology,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'None of his grandparents, and only one of his parents, was born in the US or spoke English as their mother tongue.' 'Of his three wives, one was born in Czechoslovakia and one in Slovenia.' 'Where would Trump have been if they, too, had 'rejected the ideology of globalism and embraced the doctrine of patriotism'?' asks Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'With the appeal of both the Left and the Congress fading, Banerjee fears the saffron brigade's inroads into her citadel,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
It's something to remember as New Delhi welcomes Sheikh Hasina, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Mr Trump is too capricious to be trusted,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
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