Bunch of Thoughts

This week 2 people are in the news for all the wrong reasons - Kapil Sharma and Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad. Kapil Sharma got mad at his team as they started to have their meals even before he had finished his drinks on a flight. In a fit of rage, he hit his own team members with a shoe. Ravindra Gaikwad went a setup further and slapped an Air India official 25 times with his sandal. One often wonders why these people who are public figures indulge in such behaviour. Why would any one who has accomplished so much throw it all away in a petty fight? Tony Blair also encountered this. He lost many of his talented cabinet members in the first year of office to some sex scandal. Tony too wondered what had gone wrong. In his memoir, Tony explains that power is intoxicating. The initial 'kicks' from his intoxication makes one do good ... it feels amazing to help ordinary people around you.  As with all intoxicants , soon the kick fades away and urge sets in to up the...

A confident BJP has decided to put in place a team of 'A' players to head its government in UP. This team is expected to be ruthless in implementing BJP's manifesto. Here are 3 reasons why the the team of 1 CM and 2 Deputies is a good step forward 1) Law & Order - The strength and dose of any medicine has to be proportional to the spread of the disease. Given the rampant lawless and the rise of local bahubalis in the last 5 years, only a strong, no-nonsence leader can deliver on law and order. A leader is needed who can put the fear of the law in the minds of local bahubalis. On this count, there is no better leader than Yogi Adityanath. He will lead the charge to establish the rule of law. Women security will get a boost with Yogi as CM. Yogi's track record as a MP since 1998 has been impressive. His interventions during 55 debates and 200+ questions he put forth during Question Hour demonstrate his administrative and policy making acumen. Yogi is as young as ...

There was a long standing myth in Indian politics - one cannot win an election without the support of minorities. Hence every political party puts a huge premium on the minority vote. It came to a point that every party used to complete for the minority vote. This gave birth to appeasement politics or what is commonly known as politics of secularism. Hindus on the other hand were never seen as one community. Politicians in India who were often educated abroad viewed the Hindus not  as a community but a collection of castes, cults and sects. Like most western experts the Hindu identity was looked down upon. The only recognition was that of caste. Hence the path to electoral victory was to secure the minority vote and combine that with a few caste based vote banks. This logic was turned upside down by a visionary from UP in 1991 - Kalyan Singh. Kalyan Singh dreamt of an 'Universal Spectrum of  Hindu Vote' or in simple words a Hindu vote bank. What if all Hindus irrespecti...