Dheeraj Kalgutkar

While AAP lost to BJP, Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia were also defeated in their respective constituencies      Many, especially people in Delhi, saw this coming. In a way, it is good. Or as someone mentioned, it was inevitable. Just like how it was important to defeat UPA at the height of their powers and ego trip in 2014, equally, it had become important and necessary to defeat the politics of Arvind Kejriwal. He was thinking that a mini-version of BJP's politics was the strategy to go by. He repeatedly projected himself as the better version of BJP's divisive politics - as if he could hate Muslims but continue to also provide free public services. At every step of the way in recent times, he projected himself as more religious and narrowminded than the BJP. He even avoided supporting his own Muslim legislator and rallied against admitting children of migrants in schools. Forget about his actions concerning Shaheen Bagh and CAA. And of course, he had grown hubris that he ...

If you are living in India, you for sure know how Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s late night speech of November 8th changed the daily life of every resident (okay, probably not all but most). That was the night when PM announced to the whole nation about demonetizing rupees 500 and 1000 notes. Government said its implications were huge. Demonetisation, announced by Modi on November 8, that made currency denominations of Rs 500 and 1,000 — Rs 14.1 lakh crore, or USD 211 billion, in circulating cash — illegal tender overnight, is undeniably a good idea, if one believes that citizens and their transactions must incur tax, that is. Only one per cent of Indians pay tax. Black economy makes up as much as 20 per cent of India’s total GDP, amounting to USD 1.74 trillion in PPP terms. Anand Ranganathan wrote in Newslaundry . He further wrote, The denomination made illegal tender in 1978 by Morarji Desai made up just 0.6 per cent of India’s circulating cash. Wha...

“The sex tape of Kejriwal government’s women and child development minister begins with this room. The state of the room doesn’t suggest it is a minister’s room. The room has a cupboard (actually they are shelves) and the cupboard has books. One part of the cupboard (shelf) is broken. There’s a calendar hanging on the wall. The calendar needs to be pointed out (with a big, red bobbing arrow) because the calendar could prove to be a big clue in this sex scandal (meanwhile, the calendar is hidden by the ABP news logo). There’s an ordinary mattress with a sheet on it. Delhi’s cabinet minister Sandeep Kumar is about to enter the room with a minister. Minister Sandeep Kumar is wearing a red-coloured half-pant (a shirtless man enters the frame). And the woman is wearing a green dress. The woman is old and perhaps married. Look at this, minister Sandeep Kumar has entered. (Freeze frame, close up shot of Sandeep Kumar’s shirtless torso.)” Transcript (Courtesy: Shivam Vij )...

On 12 October, 2005 came into force the Right to Information Act (RTI) which enables the citizens of India to ask for information from the public authority and mandates timely response to citizen’s requests for government information; the first application was given to a Pune Police station. The act was hailed by not just the activists and press inside but also outside country’s borders for easing the gap between citizens and their political masters, for bringing accountability and transparency. From then many prominent civil society members and ordinary citizens who are aware of their rights have used this tool to obtain information and question authority wherever necessary. Thanks to this, many corruption cases have been unearthed and different political parties have used this scams to charge at their opposition. Although the act was passed under Congress regime, it won’t be wrong to say that it’s the BJP, then in opposition which had reaped all its results by he...

R K Laxman would have been happy to see his Common Man take centre-stage and not stay somewhere in corner The creator of Common Man, late RK Laxman sir would have been triumphant to see his common man script history on political mindscape of India. His common man is no more the silent spectator but have grown to be wise enough now to exercise his power which our system bestows him once in five years. He not just watches the drama unfolding before him but takes note of who is saying what and who is doing what, and then punches the vote so hard that even the man on whose sole shoulders a party rode to power with astounding majority fails to manage to save its face. Single digit for a party who stormed national and state elections few months ago is just sham and nothing! Did Aam Aadmi Party use any intelligent strategy, master-stroke in now-just-over-historic Delhi elections? They didn’t. The AAP precisely used the open nature of Indian Democracy where nothing is written...

As the largest democracy of the world goes to polls this season, most of the folk are asking who should they vote for or should I say, most of them have already made their minds to vote for so and so! Development, legacy, over-the-top oratory, new energy or be it old issues in new package; we all have our own reasons to press that one button, the one that will decide next five years. There are people who perceive it as power-in-their-hands and there are those who see it as the same old compulsion to do so. For a hundred million voters who will press that button from EVM for first time is kind of an excitement, it’s kind of buttons from some remote control that will decide his/her boss! Sounds like digging pit for ourselves! Doesn’t it? Meanwhile, somebody should go salute those greats who sit in the comforts of their homes complaining about every other thing that has gone wrong and abuse their leaders in languages any sane person would find alien. What should they ...

Forget ‘How often’, when in history have we seen head-of-the-state sitting on  dharna  for change in his own state? When newspapers and electronic media dubbed AamAadmi Party ‘s rise as ‘history in making’, I personally giggled, for it was mere an entrant cracking exams in first attempt! Where was that‘new’ or ‘alternative’ in it? Yes, the idea of Swaraj (self-rule) which our constitution has laid out already but we never felt it, but then, it was just a talk, a manifesto to woo impatient voters. Such innovative, out-of-the-box manifestos were not new to Indian voters; each new election year, with old promises, we are sold for a few new ones and as-fast-as-that they are forgotten once they start travelling under VIP red beacons. Just as simple as that! Okay, AAP ended the VIP culture with no red beacons and put an end to ‘You-know-who-my-father-is’ dialogue- baazis . This was new for the state but then again, not the one to dub history-in-making,for we already ha...