Member of Parliament
for Thiruvananthapuram
India-Pakistan relations —a challenge at the best of times, and in the doldrums since 26/11 —received an unexpected boost last month from an unlikely source: cricket. When the two countries became semi-finalists in the game's quadrennial World Cup, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart, Yousaf Raza Gilani, to
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India-Pakistan relations – a challenge at the best of times, and in the doldrums since the terrorist attacks on Mumbai of November 2008 – received an unexpected boost last month from an unlikely source: cricket. When the two countries became semi-finalists in the game’s quadrennial World Cup, Indian Prime Minister
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India's 21st century economic story has begun to resemble an ODI. If the era of economic growth began in 1991, with the great adventure of liberalisation (Manmohan Singh's economic "idea whose time has come"), then by 2011, we as a country are headed well into our "middle overs". Successful ODI
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Today, this column appears in one more city —Deccan Chronicle makes its first appearance in Kochi. Inspired by the city’s famous Chinese fishing nets and Kerala’s renowned prowess in athletics, I thought this might be the occasion for looking anew at India’s ties with China — not through the prism
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The recent ouster of the Nobel Prize-winning Bangladeshi economist Mohammed Yunus as Managing Director of the Grameen Bank, which blazed a trail for microfinance in developing countries, has thrown a spotlight on the crisis engulfing a business that was once seen as a harbinger of hope for millions.
Yunus’s tussle with
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Intense cricketing rivalry can make for good matches. But India and Pakistan paint it over with politics.
When I was a schoolchild, and frequently bedridden with asthma, one of my favourite activities was to construct imaginary cricket teams for the solitary pastime known as “book cricket”. This was a game
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Egypt’s fate has had the world riveted in recent days to newspapers and televisions, as the unfolding consequences of Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” seem to portend a wave like the liberal revolutions of 1848 for the Arab world. Amateur historians ask breathlessly whether this could be the year of decisive change
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The tumultuous events in Egypt this week, still unfolding as I write, have been commented upon by experts far more knowledgeable than I am about the Arab world. And yet there is one aspect of what has happened that none of the experts seems to have focused on — something
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Is there something in the national character that makes young talents taper away unfulfilled? That ensures brilliance is too easily satisfied?
A chilly London summer evening in 1967 during the tour of the Indian Schoolboys' team: three balls left, 11 runs needed for victory. The first delivery, fast and swinging, uproots
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“Embassy Row” in Dili, capital of Timor-Leste (formerly known as East Timor), occupies much of the capital’s sparkling seafront. All the embassies have majestic views of the Indian Ocean. The imposing US embassy is set far back from the street in fear of possible truck-bombers; the Chinese one practically hugs
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