Rumi Nations

I put in a rather long comment on this article in Livemint. So, obviously I have to paste that comment on my blog and make a blog post out of it! 1) Who's that Duncan Fletcher guy pictured with Dhoni? Anyway, neither do I know nor do  I wish to know. I just wish people of India would stop making Gods out of silly young men that cricketers are. Even compared to the cricket that I grew up with, the days of Srikanth, Amarnath, Vengsarkar, Azhar, Sachin, Ganguly, Laxman, and Dravid, now the game is all too commercialized. Too much cricket, too much money, too many crores (and girls) dangling in front of talent-less young men. 2) What a fall when you consider that we started with "Yug-purush" such as Nehru to today's "half-purush" such as Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. Why did the people of India elect these jokers in 2004? And re-elect in 2009? But then again, what is the alternative before the billion poor of this country? No, Modi is certainly not who...

I think Mayawati is in many ways the likeliest person to become India's next Prime Minister. I see a fractious mandate being provided by the electorate in the next general election. I expect the regional leaders such as Jayalalitha and Mamta (not to mention Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik, and Omar Farooq) to do well. I am sure the ladies would love to support a female from the grassroots for the post of Prime Minster. It will be up to the big parties such as Congress and BJP to recognize people's mandate for what it is and perhaps choose to support a coalition of smaller parties at the center from outside. This will of course reflect the reality of India's diversity where each state will have an individual voice in the running of the entire nation: a truly federal structure. Mayawati has successfully Uttar Pradesh, one of the most complex Indian states. With this experience, she has shown that she is capable of engaging in the kind of deal-making that is essential to...

I am thinking of Ambika Soni having some fun at L. K. Advani's expense by wondering that she thought that he was retired. I am wondering who is Ambika's boss??? Who does she answer to? Who is the superboss of everyone in her party including as it happens the babbling, mumbling prime minister of India? It is a sad fact of Indian politics that someone like Deve Gowda has been a prime minister. It's also sad that at various times other politicians including Mulayam Yadav , Laloo Yadav , Mayawati , Chandrababu Naidu , and many others have been possible prime ministerial candidates. L. K. Advani's suitability to be prime minister may be open to debate. But surely, no one has less locus standi to be the prime minister than Sonia Gandhi. I wonder how these people can sleep well at night. After all, one can lie all one wants to the world at large but you can't lie to yourself.