The Fiction of Fact-finding questions whether the SC took an appropriate decision by appointing the SIT in the first place

Mr Modi and the Godhra factor

Business Standard

The Sangh's leadership has boxed itself into a tight situation. It now needs to wait and see if Modi can deliver in the Lok Sabha polls

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay: RSS faces a different Modi wave

While attempting to provide an alternative to the political system, the Aam Aadmi Party risks becoming a clone of one of the existing parties

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay: AAP's road to politicisation

Lord Ram stopped being a major draw in contemporary politics of Uttar Pradesh from the day that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran Lal Krishna Advani described as the "saddest day" in his life. December 6, 1992, made many Muslims in India realise - as a journalist friend wrote at that time - what "it meant to be a Muslim". In the past two decades, this point became a narrative following a path of progression. The same cannot be said about the dispute over Ayodhya, and about Lord Ram, the mythological idol that is also considered an ideal by large sections of Hindus. Despite laborious attempts by the Sangh Parivar, people in Uttar Pradesh do not take to the streets in the name of Ram with the kind of hostility they once displayed. The first thought that crossed my mind when the book under review landed on my desk was whether the title was a tad dated.In the introduction of his book Region, Nation, "Heartland": Uttar Pradesh in India's Body Politic, historian Gyanesh Kudaisya drew atte

A UP roller coaster

Reviving the 2002 discourse suggests Narendra Modi is unsure if the Gujarat Model will work at the all-India level

The doer as demagogue

His action after the Godhra train violence doesn't support the picture of an effective and no-nonsense deliverer of good governance

That stubborn stain on Modi's record

The author of this book was a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009. A former journalist and son of veteran BJP leader Jaswant Singh, he lost the election in 2009. He had previously failed in his maiden attempt at electoral politics, in 1999. He contested all three elections from Barmer, the desert constituency on the edge of India that borders Pakistan through the Thar desert. The seat includes the iconic town of Jaisalmer, besides huge rural and inhospitable tracts.There was a sense of excitement at picking up the book for review. Since it has been written by a former journalist - and an accomplished one at that - one was guaranteed a good read. Beyond that, the book also appeared promising because it was probably the only one of its kind, at least in India: in which a candidate in a parliamentary poll maintains a diary and thereafter makes it available in book form. What would the book contain? Would there be candid disclosures about the games that a

Chronicle of an election untold

Their differences underscore a major transition point in the political evolution of the saffron party

Modi and Advani: The two faces of BJP's Hindutva

A set of essays examines the rise of activism in India outside the framework of the political party system

We the activist people

This is one book that every Ayodhya reporter probably wanted to do but never had the opportunity to return to the temple-town with time in hand. More than a quarter of a century has passed since Ayodhya emerged as one of the core concerns of India. Since that fateful day in February 1986, when in a haste rarely exhibited by the Indian judiciary the lock on the disputed shrine was opened for Hindu devotees, this small city has periodically grabbed headlines.

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay