In India, we prefer the false modesty of a Rahul or Manmohan to the straight brashness of a Modi. But do we want to remain as hypocrites?
Manmohan Singh's record of looking the other way when scamsters were at work and of failing to intervene when ruinous economic policies were being implemented signals a lack of authority. It will take more than a day's roar in Parliament to change that assessment .
When prejudice masquerades as punditry, you are going to misread the public mood. This is why the pundits have gone repeatedly wrong on Modi,
Modi perhaps reasons that the riots of 2002 are a closed chapter, and he has nothing to account for. But the efficacy of that approach may be tested more virulently in the year ahead as he goes national.
He is a smart politician who used 2002 to build his power base and then tried to do some good with that power and reinvent himself as a development man.
Projecting Modi as its candidate gives the BJP a head-start in the campaign for 2014, But an excessive reliance on Modi-mania - at the expense of attention to details of policy articulation - too holds risks for the BJP.
Just as the dominoes of international opinion directed against Modi are falling, so too is opposition within the BJP to the project to anoint him the party's candidate for the 2014 elections. .
This stray dog episode reflects why it’s so difficult to smoke the peace pipe with Pakistan.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde outdid himself when he made a statement in the Rajya Sabha today in which he named the three minor victims who were raped, killed and thrown into a well in Bhandara.
The nation watched P Chidambaram present his budget. But it was actually a casting call for a brand new edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Guess who gets to be the new Snow White?
Chidambaram's subsidy bills show a steep drop in 2013-14 - something which is difficult to believe
Budget numbers can be invented at the drop of a hat if finance ministers want to desperately show better figures. So watch out.
What kind of Budget speech do we really require from P Chidambaram this year? Here are some things he needs to say to put India on the road to recovery.
The outrage was strangely more against the free availability of acid rather than the practice of acid-attacks against women and the latter’s general vulnerability to violence.
If there's one thing that today's Railway Budget - for all its utter irrelevance - should focus on, it is on improving urban metro rail systems, particularly frequency of train service and an enhancement of safety and comfort levels.
The CCTV footage and other evidence in its present form is unlikely to lead the investigators looking into the Hyderabad blasts anywhere.
Why should the Central government not trust the states? In the operational functions the NCTC can always coordinate its activities with the state police.
Premature preening by investigators in front of media - even before the investigations are complete - only gives room for lively apprehension, born of well-merited cynicisim, that something is not quite right about the investigations.
The Congress vice-president perhaps doesn't want to become a minister in this cabinet because that's not his focus at the moment.
Despite its frequent dates with terror attacks, India has never developed or followed a protocol in reacting to tragedies like the blasts in Hyderabad.
The States spiked the proposal for a National Counter Terrorism Centre on political grounds. The price for that is being paid by innocent civilians on the streets of Dilsukh Nagar and in other neighbourhoods across India.
The Hyderabad blasts appear to have the finger-prints of the Indian Mujahideen. It is also in keeping with ISI's new strategy of using local terror groups which it can then deny responsibility for
Expressions of seeming contrition from politicians are always laced with a streak of insincerity that shows up their "half-apology" or "non-apology" or an "unapologetic apology" as a mere rhetorical device to enable them to "move on".
It's now come to the point where the perverse argument is being made that perhaps we don't really need a scrupulously honest minister like Antony: what we need is someone who can "strike a balance" between probity and effectiveness.
The BJP is not buying the assurance of the prime minister and the defence minister that the government had "nothing to hide".
By pre-empting AK Antony's effort to cancel the AgustaWestland copter deal if bribes were paid, the government is signalling that it is not sincere about cracking the case.
Too many judges like Markandey Katju are accepting post-retirement jobs - which compromises them with the system of patronage and corruption.
Ever since Guru's hanging, the UPA government has become a victim of its own schizophrenia and has allowed a vacuum to build up in the political discourse on Kashmir, which the separatists and hardliners have filled. It is time now for it to change the narrative.
There is now confirmation that the government never intended to inform Afzal Guru's family in time about the hanging. Is this how a state should behave?
With his partisan, extra-judicial, facts-be-damned comments on Modi, which relate to a domain far removed from his current responsibility as Press Council chairman, Katju has crossed the line of propriety for men in public office.