My neighbour of 30 years in Chennai knocked on my door recently and offered what seemed like temple prashad. He said he had gone to Ayodhya as part of a family pilgrimage that included Varanasi. My neighbour's politics is typically Tamil, or Dravidian, if you will. He wears his dislike of...
This article was first published On Aug 26, 2018 There was something unusual about the Tamil Nadu political scene on Saturday. Vijayakanth was in the news – it was his birthday – and he had not invited troll attention. It seemed as if they had given him a pass because of his failing health. The...
Chief Minister M K Stalin has taken away the finance portfolio from Palanivel Thiagarajan and given it to Thangam Thennarasu. PTR will handle IT and he has thanked chief minister M K Stalin for the move. Earlier Stalin had dismissed the PTR tapes as cheap politics. Palanivel Thiagarajan has...
This column had made the point that Governor R N Ravi was not just an administrative choke point for the government but was seeking to amplify the nationalist narrative as a counter to Dravidian ideology and the DMK. Governor R N Ravi was not just a tough customer who stalled government work...
A Facebook post that came up recently featured a photo of film star Rajinikanth standing next to a shorter, scraggy looking man – purportedly a daily wage worker. The accompanying comment said both came from up north for survival and they should know their place and behave. If this is how at...
Governor R N Ravi is a BJP asset in Tamil Nadu. His constitutional position gives him the gravitas that the vocal state BJP president Annamalai lacks. Keeping a check on the DMK government more effectively than the opposition parties, Governor Ravi goes beyond his constitutional role, playing a...
Kalaga Thalaivan is a taut thriller that could potentially work for multiplex audiences. It has a complex storyline and a grand ideological premise. It grandly declares that corporates rule Indian life and that includes all political parties. KT has Thiru, aka Udhayanidhi, as the rebel whose...
The Wire and its editorial leadership is under a cloud. They first put out a story on Meta saying that Instagram posts by a satirical account critical of the BJP and Hindutva are being taken down rather too quickly by Instagram. A follow-up article said, based on a purported internal document...
Head constable Raja had come to distribute food packets so his fellow policemen could be fed and have the energy to battle rioters. He was in plainclothes and doing his duty. Ordered by his superiors, he climbed on top of an Eicher police van and shot at protesters with a 0.410 musket – a gun...
During an interview with inmathi.com, data scientist R S Neelakantan said that irrespective of whether you are rightwing, leftwing or centrist, you wouldn’t want babies to die in society. Neelakantan also hints that what makes us save our babies also has little to do with the economic...
