P Chidambaram and Sitaram Yechuri are very different people. It’s unlikely that you would think of them as similar in any meaningful respect. However, last weekend I got to interview th...
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I don’t know if you noticed, but Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee handed back the trappings of office with admirable alacrity. First, he resigned before the full count was over. Then, he dispensed wi...
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“If Pakistan in 2011 is a frightening place” began Bob Blackwill, the former American Ambassador and now a leading think tank pundit, as we sipped coffee in the Taj Lounge, “...
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Ten days ago I was one in two billion, by which I don’t mean someone special but only one of very many people. But I was delighted by that. In fact, I wouldn’t have had it otherwise. I sat...
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“It must be fun to be a journalist” someone said to me the other day and I have to admit it often is. When a story you’re covering is on top of the news it can be thrilling t...
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I can’t claim I knew Jyoti Basu well but my last conversation with him could turn out to be prescient. It happened in 1999. I was visiting his Salt Lake residence in Calcutta to interview h...
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“What do you make of Anna Hazare?” It was meant as an innocent question but when I started to answer it transformed into an unexpected challenge. There’s no doubt I admire th...
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I’ve done a little test to see how right or wrong my views can be and, I’m delighted to tell you that, atleast in this one instance, I’m almost spot on. I sent some fifty different peopl...
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They say one measure of a man’s greatness is the extent to which controversy surrounds him. By that yardstick Mahatma Gandhi was a very great man indeed. In his lifetime, his insistence on s...
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Now that Wikileaks has confirmed the broad details of a mystifying but intriguing story from 26/11, I feel free to add my own contribution to the tale. I’m talking of the hoax call made to t...
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