A few days ago, when President Trump tweeted that he will no longer allow members of the Transgender community to serve in the U.S.  military, the response from the military was swift and unambiguous in that they were not obliged to implement this morally and constitutionally indefensible order until he clarifies what exactly he means.  Also, we have seen in the past, various media outlets have refused to be cowed down by the heavy hand of the Federal administration.  On the other hand, the exact opposite is happening in India.  Here, a news report appears on two prominent web portal, where it's been mentioned how there has been a 300 % increase in the personal assets of the president of the ruling BJP Mr. Amit Shah in the last few years.  There was also an item about how the Union Minister Ms. Smriti Irani is in the habit of giving confusing signals about her educational qualification, and basically, lying under oath.
   I am not suggesting that either Prime Minister Modi or Amit Shah put a gun on the heads of the editorial staff to drop the story.  In India, things don't get this brazen, but rather more subtle and insidious methods are employed to silence the dissent.  I can't say what exactly transpired, but within a few hours of being put up, both of the critical reports were taken down from the web sites of Times of India and DNA of the Zee group respectively.  Not only is this spineless behavior most unfortunate, it is a damning indictment of large sections Indian media, who don't have the guts to stand by their stories.  This is the utterly craven mentality to be always looking for approval of the powers that be.  They should learn from their plucky American counterparts.  

Sushil Kumar Modi is one of the most decent and hard working political leaders in Bihar.  If today the Yadav clan is in the doghouse of corruption charges, a large part of the credit would go to this other Modi, who has over the years relentlessly pursued the leads, digging up evidence, producing reams of documents before the investigating agencies and the courts.  Had it not been for his dogged determination, I think it would be fair to say that Mr. Lalu Yadav & Family would have most probably got away.  What I also like about Sushil Modi is that he is as different from Amit Shah as chalk is from cheese.  And I am reasonably confident that his presence as a deputy to Mr. Nitish Kumar in the coalition, would work as a counter-balance to the sectarian impulses of the RSS in the state.

Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer prize winning author of 'Olive Kitteridge', which was also turned into an Emmy winning HBO drama.  Many people believe that no one, at present writes about the other America as well as she does.  Her work is about the kind of isolated, small town America in the interiors.  These are the type of places where you got a hardware store, a humble little cafe, a gas station and if you're lucky, a salon, and that's about it.  Their tiny houses and vast expanses of corn fields.  You get the sense that the sheer ennui of the place is going to choke you.  Places such as Amgash and Carlisle in Illinois or Hannibal in Missouri.

When Sagarika Ghose, whom I have greatly admired over the years both as a TV anchor and as a print journalist, came out with her book on Indira Gandhi last month, I was quite indifferent and almost skeptical.  I thought here goes another book out to so many that are already available on Mrs. Gandhi in the market.  After all, she has been one of the most scrutinized and reported on individuals in India in the last 50 years.  What more can we be told that most of us already don’t know?  I thought of it as one of those vanity projects on the part of the author, and I was resolved not to buy this book.  Then one night, I was watching a discussion on NDTV where Nidhi Razdan was talking to Sagarika about her latest book, and since I am quite fond of both these women, I thought I would give this a try.  And I am so glad that I read this book.  This has been a terrific effort by Sagarika Ghose.  She has come up with a really engaging and penetrating portrait of some of the most defining years of post-independence India.  But what I found most fascinating is how beautifully she has managed to get through the façade, and captured the true persona, the essence, if you like, of the woman who was at the helm of affairs during those years.  You acutely get the sense that her controversial legacy continues to cast an enduring shadow on politics in this country even more than 30 years after her death.  The thing with powerful and authoritarian leader in a country like ours is that, even though your opponents will loathe you when they are at the receiving end of your stick; but as soon as the fortunes are reversed, they will employ the same tactics from that powerful leader’s playbook, almost as a backhanded compliment.  Something very similar is happening in India today.

   Since the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi in 1984, a whole new generation has come of age.  This book should be read by not only those who were born after 1984 but also by everyone else who is interested in finding out arguably the most compelling political narrative of the second half of the 20^th century in India.  The book reads like a thriller and gives you a really engrossing picture of the kind of complex individual Indira Gandhi was.  Even though the author is somewhat sympathetic towards her subject, it has at no felt like a hagiography, in fact, far from it.  Neither has it been a hatchet job either.  Rather, Sagarika Ghose brings out a clear-eyed and lucid understanding of the real Mrs. G by speaking with all the available dramatis-personae of the time.  She uses her incisive journalistic skills to lay out a comprehensive and complex picture of the kind of woman both as an individual and as a powerful Prime Minister Mrs. Gandhi was, warts and all.  One feels almost a fly on the wall, how from the confident, strong, and unchallenged leader in the first half of her long inning as prime minister, to the vulnerable, shaky, and increasingly paranoid leader of the second half.  A kind of prime minister who was beginning to see demons all around her.  You feel as if she was sleepwalking into one blunder after another, and eventually paying with her own life.  What I also feel is that no matter how grand and glittering your political career has been, when the end comes, it will look like an utter failure.  Indira Gandhi was a true patriot.  But she was not a true democrat like her father.  For her, political power was not a means to an end, but the end itself.  All through her time in office, she remained under the mistaken belief that the people of India were her one big extended family, and as a mother, it was her solemn duty and obligation to take care of this humongous family.  Little did she realize that sometimes even motherly love can be too much, and India got suffocated in this maternal embrace somewhere along the way. 

   I also see it as a cautionary tale for us as citizens.  We must be vigilant at all times, because these powerful and supreme leaders with authoritarian impulses, be it Narendra Modi at the moment or Indira Gandhi all those years ago; when they do or do not do something, it does not just impact that particular moment, but the repercussions can be felt for the next 50 years and more.

In a tragic news, it's been put in the public domain that Mr. John Mccain, Senator from Arizona and 2008 Republican nominee has been diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 80. That's how it should be in a democracy, where the health of any public figure should be common knowledge Instead, what we've got in India is a system of complete secrecy regarding any health issues or illness of its top leaders. We still don't know what's wrong with Sonia Gandhi that she keeps taking off to the U.S. for treatment at regular intervals. People in India have a right to know what is the true nature of her illness, whether it's cervical cancer, as some media reports have speculated or something else. She is in political life. She should not expect to be protected in a cocoon of mystique. Also, what does it tells us about the Indian media, when they are not good enough to ferret out the truth on their own.

The state of Bihar is going to the dogs.  But these two capricious egomaniacs, namely Nitish and Lalu don't give a damn!!  No worthwhile work is getting done for I don't know how many months.  The whole administration is frozen in a suspended animation.  The people working for the government are just going through the motion from one day to another.  But you don't have to confuse motion for action.  It is downright scandalous state of affairs right now.

I have to say that that it's a most uninspired choice to have Mr. Vekaiah Naidu as the new Vice President of India.  Since I am a literary minded person, I would think that comparing Mr. Venkaiah Naidu to Mr. Gopal Krishna Gandhi is like comparing Chetan Bhagat with Amitav Ghosh.  It's just that Mr. Naidu has numbers stacked in his favor, in much the same way that more people have read Chetan Bhagat in India than they have Amitav Ghosh.  What I also think that at a larger level, this also demonstrates the current BJP government's almost visceral dislike of intellectual and scholarly people.

For the last few days, I cannot shake my mind off thinking about Liu Xiaobo.  The literary critic, writer and an indomitable advocate for human rights and political reforms in China.  What the Chinese authorities have done to him is beyond despicable.  Some years ago, he co–authored a report where he severely indicted the government for lack of political openness and gross human rights violations and demanded greater freedom and accountability from the communist party.  For this daring act, in 2009, he was put in prison for life without recourse to any appeal.  He was placed in solitary confinement and none of his family members were allowed to visit him in jail.  Even though the Chinese state was impervious to Mr. Liu Xiaobo, the world took notice.  In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize.  This well-deserved recognition at the global stage for Mr. Liu Xiaobo did not go down well with the government in China.  They did not let him travel to Oslo to receive the award.  As a mark of respect for Mr. Liu, an empty chair was put in place among the other recipients and the Nobel citation was placed on that vacant chair.
   While under incarceration in Jinzhou, Liaoning, somewhere in the northeast China, his health kept deteriorating.  When at last, the international media discovered the fact that the 61 years old Mr. Liu has been suffering from liver cancer and is in a terminal stage, it was only then that the government authorities decided to release him on medical parole.  One has learned from various media reports that Mr. Liu Xiaobo is receiving only rudimentary medical care at the local hospital in Jinzhou.  Meanwhile, the governments in various European countries and also President Trump in the United States, have been calling upon China to accede to the wish of the dying man and allow him to go to either Germany or the US in order to receive the best possible medical assistance under the circumstances.  But so far, the Chinese government has categorically rejected every request to reconsider its stand on humanitarian grounds.  Mr. Liu Xiaobo is months away from dying.  If and when this tragedy comes to pass, he will be the second Nobel Laureate to die in custody after the Nazi era.  Shame on you Xi Jinping!

Mr. Swapan Dasgupta has been blessed with the fancy education of St. Stephen's in New Delhi and Oxford University in the UK. So he can coach his Modi bhakti, and shameless rationalization of the inherent bigotry of BJP/RSS in a sophisticated prose and posh accent. Compared to him, I am just an uneducated imbecile, even though I firmly believe in the constitutional values and secular ethos of this ancient land. And unlike him, I am so dense in my head that I don't realize that all those decent citizens who protested the other day against the rising incidence of public lynching of Muslims and Dalits in India are Ivory Tower intellectuals and anti-nationals. They are ''rootless cosmopolitans'', as he put it. By the way, the same ''rootless cosmopolitans'' was used to describe the Jews in Nazi Germany once upon a time. So, there you have it.

So, now we know that Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Netanyahu are quite thick buddies.  Even though it was a bit exaggerated display of bonhomie by the two leaders, it is nobody's case that we should not have good friendly relations with Israel.  What I found most jarring amidst all this is that not even once did Mr. Modi either appreciate or acknowledged the contribution made by the architect of this relationship; former prime minister late P.V. Narasimha Rao.  In 1993, Mr. Rao went against the then prevailing consensus and decided that it is in India's national interest to have good relations with Israel.  By completely ignoring Narasimha Rao on this historic occasion, the prime minister has shown a complete lack of grace.  Don't be so obsessed with self-glorification and self-promotion Mr. Modi.

Somebody posts something about Prophet Muhammed on facebook, and these fanatical Muslims start behaving like rabid dogs in Bengal.  They have gone on a rampage, indulging in mindless violence, arson and rioting in the last couple of days.  Chief Minister Mamata Banarjee is foolishly putting all her eggs in one basket.  And that basket is the 28 percent Muslim vote in the state.  By cynically appeasing the most fundamentalist and reactionary elements of the community, she is only preparing the ground for a severe backlash from the Hindu community.  She is giving ample opportunity to the RSS/BJP to fish in troubled waters.

I think one reason for President Trump's impulsive attitude towards so many issues is that he is not in the habit of reading anything.  Forget about reading books, he is not even known to read the extensive briefings on domestic and international affairs prepared by his support staff in the White House.  Instead, he gets all his information and knowledge from television!  I read the other day, that on an average Mr. Trump watches 5 hours of network TV every day.  He is particularly fond of FOX network.  Now, do I need to say anything more?