Articles from the author

Last week, I met 52-year-old Saira Bibi in Ahmedabad's Naroda-Patiya area. Saira, like so many others in this area, doesn't have an address at the moment.

Here's a confession: for the last 10 years or so, I have been in intermittent contact with Chhota Shakeel. Now, before the Mumbai police arrests me under MCOCA, or the home ministry threatens to slap POTA, let me clarify that the nature of the contact is purely professional.

That Indian politicians are increasingly out of touch with people has been self-evident for several years now.

Analysis: Do you hear me, Mr Modi?

It has been pitched as the mother of all election battles: an election which will redefine Indian politics and society.

It is not easy being a journalist these days. A journalist is no longer expected to question, to interrogate or to disagree.

In a state where death has become a daily statistic, the question one is asked most frequently now is when will the violence in Gujarat really end?

This is a tale of two masks, both of which have fallen off in different parts of the country. The mask which Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has worn with such effectiveness for several decades slipped in the rather unlikely setting of the banks of the Mandovi river in Goa.

Who is the face of Indian politics in the west?

At a press conference in Srinagar last week, the prime minister grandly announced an economic package of Rs6,165 for Jammu and Kashmir.

It was an image frozen in time. Omar Abdullah stomping away from the counting centre in Srinagar, his eyes betraying a mix of disbelief, hurt and anger.

It was meant to be the cabinet reshuffle that would carry the prime minister's stamp of authority.