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Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Indian Express

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It doesn’t matter where or when she sets her stories — what matters is that she can say a sentence that leaps out at you

I am sitting in my study staring at my copy of Alice Munro’s New Selected Stories, a collection of some of her “finest work” from her last five...

22.05.2024 70

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Reaction to International Court seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders shows international order is beyond even the redeeming comforts of organised hypocrisy

The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor has thrown down the gauntlet by seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...

22.05.2024 70

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Behind student anger in US, three crises — democracy, university, protest

The widespread protests against the war in Gaza across dozens of US university campuses, and the unprecedented crackdowns are a sign of a triple...

26.04.2024 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

BJP's biggest challenge in this polls is listlessness of its own support base

The current general election, at least until phase one, has been characterised by an odd ennui and silence. This is partly reflected in the decreasing...

24.04.2024 50

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

If you have a government that does not allow the Opposition to mobilise, organise and govern, it is hard to pretend that we are a democracy

The arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is a watershed moment in India’s slide towards a full blown tyranny. Much of what this...

23.03.2024 100

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

With CAA Rules, excluding minorities by stealth

The enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Rules is a perfect embodiment of a polity where rulers are utterly cynical, and their supporters...

14.03.2024 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Publicness of Ambani festivities, move away from traditional reticence of Indian business, represent broader shift in culture

The relentless attention to the pre-wedding ceremony of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant is a fascinating window into the vast shifts in both the...

05.03.2024 30

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

The recent verdicts ought not to merely be an episodic legitimisation of the façade of constitutionalism

Two recent decisions by the Supreme Court, declaring the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional and pronouncing AAP the winner in the mayoral race in...

23.02.2024 60

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

There is no evidence that the Court is capable of rising to the occasion

Today the Supreme Court of the United States is hearing what might possibly turn out to be one of the most consequential court cases in the history of...

08.02.2024 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

India’s fascination with Ram stems from its faith in him as the ideal ruler

There are various aspects of Lord Ram that have kept our devotion to him strong over millennia. India is the only pre-Bronze Age culture that is still...

22.01.2024 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Ram’s dhwaja has been planted. But the question of dharma is met with a silence

There are moments in history that appear to drive wave after wave of people in a great torrent of catharsis, ecstasy, emotion and an elevated group...

22.01.2024 100

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

In 2024, tough choices for voters everywhere

2024 may be politically one of the most fateful years for the planet in recent memory. Elections will be held in most of the world’s major...

01.01.2024 10

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Parliament without Opposition is show of unbridled power of the executive

It is a monumental tragedy that the government’s suspension of more than 140 MPs is still being seen merely as a political contest between the...

22.12.2023 70

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Part of the problem is that this war has become an occasion to litigate everything but the stopping of the war itself

There is a horrific war unfolding in Gaza. The war itself was a response to Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel. But the scale of what Israel is...

16.12.2023 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

SC's judgment on Article 370 abrogation lacks the reassurance that it has the integrity to uphold the Constitution

The judgment of the Supreme Court, upholding the abrogation of Article 370, is a massive legal victory for the Narendra Modi government’s approach...

11.12.2023 10

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Opposition is struggling to find language and space for a critique that hits the mark

The BJP’s emphatic victory in north India in the recent assembly elections has reopened the question: What can be the strategy for the Opposition,...

07.12.2023 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Henry Kissinger's ability to pull off the appearance of indispensability made him larger than life

Henry Kissinger’s eventful 100-year life has become, to use W H Auden’s phrase about Freud, a “whole climate of opinion”. He shaped the post...

01.12.2023 10

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Israel-Hamas conflict shows governments today are making bedfellows of extremists

It has been 24 days since the barbaric Hamas attack on Israel. Two hundred-odd hostages are still captive. This has been followed by an unprecedented...

31.10.2023 8

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

Same sex marriage is an affirmation of the value of marriage, not a departure from it

In its latest judgment, the Supreme Court of India has taken some steps to protect same sex unions from discrimination, and granted those unions...

18.10.2023 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

If Putin had succeeded, it would have incentivised war as a principle of world politics with a vengeance

Political developments in America and Europe over the last few weeks are again putting a spotlight on the global politics of the war in Ukraine ....

06.10.2023 20

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

The infrastructural nationalism that marks the transition to a new Parliament building is symbolic of our times

The transition to a new Parliament building is one more marker in India’s new Age of Ambition. Amid all the immediate dangers our democracy faces,...

20.09.2023 10

Indian Express

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

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