Mani Shankar Aiyar – Author, NDTV.com

Opinion: What Critics Miss When Jeering Rahul Gandhi As Congress Boss

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Thursday October 05, 2017

It is all very well to say that inner party democracy demands an alternative choice, but the eternal question remains: who is going to bell the cat?

Mani Shankar Aiyar On Ram Madhav's Offer Of Dialogue To Kashmir

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday September 26, 2017

By sheer coincidence, I happened to arrive in Srinagar on a private visit on the very day, September 22, when Ram Madhav was quoted by Ashiq Hussain, the Srinagar correspondent of The Hindustan Times, as having said in the J&K capital, "We are open to dialogue".

Opinion: On Congress Leaders And Their Travel, Amit Shah Knows Nothing

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Thursday September 21, 2017

Of the many cretinous remarks that have escaped the lips of Amit Shah's bearded visage, perhaps the most unlettered was his statement last week that the Congress only undertook yatras when they carried the ashes of their dead leaders around the country.

Opinion: Dear Smriti Irani, RG Showed Courage In Critiquing His Mother

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Wednesday September 13, 2017

Smriti Irani is the Master (or is it "Mistress"?) of the Trivial. Her rebuttal of Rahul Gandhi's speech and Q&A at Berkeley was confined to personal abuse (of the person who had thrashed her in the last elections) and jibes at a handful of phrases used by RG, while completely bypassing the substance of what he had to say at the University.

Opinion: On Rohingyas, Modi Regime Ends India's Golden Tradition

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday September 05, 2017

Religion has never before 2014 been used as a marker to determine whether we offer shelter or not.

Mani Shankar Aiyar On Ram Rahim's Blockbuster Appeal

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday August 29, 2017

Several unfortunate women suffered grievously at his hands; lakhs upon lakhs only benefited.

Opinion: Amit Shah Forces Shotgun Wedding For EPS, OPS

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday August 22, 2017

The factions have been sternly told to get together, failing which their remaining four years in office would be in jeopardy of yielding to President's Rule. Fearing the ballot-box even more than fearing Amit Shah, EPS and OPS have agreed to say, "I do" even if their principal bone of contention - ridding the party of Sasikala - remains open on the agenda.

Opinion: Mani Shankar Aiyar Reviews PM Modi's Aug 15 Speech

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Thursday August 17, 2017

Words, words, words. And yet more words. For the last three years, the nation has had to sit through a cataract of alliterations and acronyms flowing from the ramparts of the Red Fort to end up misinformed, misled and misdirected by a cocktail of evasions, half-truths and white lies. This Independence Day has been no different.

Opinion: Amit Shah Beaten By The Congress' Own Chanakya

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Thursday August 10, 2017

This time he was upstaged by the Congress party's own Chankaya who understood Shah's underhand manipulations and deployed his own deep understanding of Gujarat's politics to keep one step ahead.

Opinion: Bhutan Stands By India, But Modi Is Weakening It

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Saturday August 05, 2017

While the nation remains riveted on developments in the Doklam plateau, not enough is being said or considered about our relations with the cis-Himalayan states, Nepal and Bhutan, that constitute a critical part of the bulwark of our defence in any major confrontation with China.

Opinion: What Bengaluru Has Against Hindi In Its Metro And Elsewhere

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Saturday July 29, 2017

Is it a manifestation of a troubled quest for identity that is being traduced by Modi's version of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan?

Opinion: Modi Has Squandered Goodwill He Won In Nepal

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Thursday July 20, 2017

These opinions ranged, at one end of the spectrum, from the Rashtriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N), a recently formed conglomerate of the numerous disgruntled Terai parties, to the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) or UML at the other end, with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) falling in between while tilting to the Left, and the Nepali Cong...

Opinion: Reading Modi's Many, Fervent Hugs For Netanyahu

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Monday July 10, 2017

Can Israel be de-hyphenated from Palestine any more than Modi 2002 can be de-hyphenated from Modi 2017? The question is germane because even as Modi and his apologists try to distance Modi in domestic policy from the pogrom over which he loomed in Gujarat, so do Modi and his cohort try in foreign policy to project an Israel that is unrelated to the atrocities that hav...

Opinion: Open Letter From Mani Shankar Aiyar To Swapan Dasgupta

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Wednesday July 05, 2017

You justify the spate of lynching we have been witnessing since the brutal killing of Mohammad Akhlaque two years ago by claiming, "There is a streak of underlying violence in India's public culture", adding, "India remains a violent place". Shhh! Don't let Modi hear that for he told his Sabarmati audience on 29 June, "We are a land of non-violence"! You could lose yo...

Opinion: Rajinikanth Unlikely As A BJP Star

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Thursday June 29, 2017

Will he, won't he? Like teenagers seeking to divine their romantic prospects, Tamil Nadu (and much of the country) is plucking petals from the daisy to answer their anxious question. But, should Rajinikanth eventually decide to come in, would that be such a game-changer?

OPINION