I have followed Narendra Modi’s political career since the Ram Janmabhoomi rath yatra in 1990. Through good times and bad, what has always marked him out is a sense of the occasion: Mr Modi knows what will make news perhaps better than any other Indian politician I know.
In 1992, I had a chance to visit the United States as part of a journalist exchange programme. Among my travel stops was the newsroom of The Washington Post. Ben Bradlee, it’s legendary editor has just retired, but the ghosts of the Bradlee era and the infamous Watergate expose loomed large over the news space.
Yesterday, I rang up Sharad Pawar to seek an interview on the Maharashtra verdict. Pawar spoke gently as ever, but refused the request “You called the NCP a cash and carry party on television during your election programme, why should I give you an interview?”
a) Modi is a true Pan-Indian leader: the general elections propelled Modi from Gujarat chief minister into India’s neta number one; the state elections have reinforced his stature as a pan-Indian leader.
Political judgements based on opinion polls are hazardous at the best of times, but when there is a five-cornered fight like in Maharashtra, pollsters are often whistling in the dark. There were almost 50 constituencies in Maharashtra in 2009 where the margin was less than 5,000 votes, making any conclusive poll prediction a nightmare. And yet, let me stick my neck out on my home state: The BJP will be almost certainly the single-largest party and, in fact, should get a clear majority.
The tyranny of television rating points has meant that exit polls are now part of the great Indian election tamasha. Let me make an honest confession: I am a firm believer in the CSDS method of post polls, which are done at least a day after the votes have been caste and where the pollsters actually go to people’s homes to get a more exhaustive survey done.
It takes a book festival in Kasauli to get away from the noise of news. A weekend in the bracing hills of Himachal to attend the Khushwant Singh literary festival was just what the doctor ordered.
In February this year, I met MV Kamath for the last time. Kamath, a veteran journalist, was dean of the Manipal Institute of Communication and had invited me to talk on the political situation in the country. We had to walk two floors: Kamath was 93, ailing, but insisted on taking the stairs. ‘I need to get fit,’
Cinema often holds a mirror to society. Remember those macho ‘war’ films of the 1990s: the Gaddars and the Borders that glorified the army and projected Pakistan as the permanent …
