By Girish Nikam
When it comes to theatrics no state can beat Tamil Nadu. A state which has based its politics around films and film stars, for the last over 40 years, it comes as no surprise. What makes the present elections poignant is that it just may be the last elections, the Tamil film script [...]
By Girish Nikam
As we enter the final stretches of the Poll marathon, results of which is still two weeks away, one is appalled by how little we are talking of the real issues being faced by the nation in this election. This became more evident when one went around the Western Uttar Pradesh belt, [...]
By Girish Nikam
Five years ago around this time when the elections to the 14th Lok Sabha was
underway, and then ruling NDA was riding the “India Shining” bandwagon, Congress
which had been out of power for the previous eight years, was at its lowest
morale. Even its drum beaters in their war room at South Avenue were refraining
from [...]
For a long time in Bihar, the Muslims who constitute 16.5 percent of the 9 crore population, have been lulled into smugness by the relatively peaceful communal atmosphere in the State. This has been largely due to the unabashed pro-Muslim policy adopted by RJD Chief Lalu Yadav in all these almost 20 years that he [...]
There has always been a joke about bumping into Malayalis in any part of the world, why even in Moon and Mars. That credit (or is it discredit?) should now legitimately go to the Biharis, or atleast they should share it with the Malayalis. Why they have now become such a ubiquitous presence across the [...]
It’s indeed been a voyage of discovery, every time one travels in the hinterlands of Bihar, and the education continues. Much has been talked about criminals in politics and their nexus with politicians. One has to wander around Maharajganj and Siwan to understand this nexus. These are two places where criminals with records of murder [...]
By Girish Nikam
Five years back when Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh was “hoisted” on the nation by the Congress President Sonia Gandhi after rejecting the demand for herself to occupy the throne, he had made it clear that the “mandate was for Sonia Gandhi, and not for me”. For some this statement was an act of [...]
By Girish Nikam
When the United Progressive Alliance was formed following the defeat of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the 2004 general elections, many did not give the newly cobbled up alliance much time for survival. The BJP leadership in particular in fact gave it only six months and later kept revising the fall-date, only [...]
By Girish Nikam
A couple of weeks back when The Hindu broke the controversy about the bickering in the Election Commission between the Chief Election Commissioner N.Gopalaswami and his colleague, Election Commissioner, Navin Chawla, all hell seemed to have broken loose, just on the eve of elections.
The media and the polity as well as the legal [...]
By Girish Nikam
It was touching to read the way in which the BJP’s Prime Minister-in-waiting L.K.Advani rushed to the defence of one of the accused in the Malegaon blasts, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur the other day. His reasoning that he had kept quiet all this time as Sadhus and Sadhvis and army officers were being [...]
