BJP should remember that an all out bid to break away individual legislators from the Congress-Janata Dal (S) coalition could actually drive the two parties closer in an alliance that would become a formidable electoral combination in Karnataka.

One of the smartest things Prime Minister Narendra Modi did after coming to power four years ago was to appoint diehard loyalists as state governors. They were either beholden to him or to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Reminiscing about the past is a dreadful tool that filmmakers often use to bring out a certain empathy for a character stuck in a specific time period. But it is also equally true for the filmmakers themselves, who are often stuck in the past, unresponsive to the present environment, reacting to it only through memories.

And then there are those filmmakers who receive an instant emotional blow from the socio-political situation of the present and hurl away the burden of the past to deliver a message for the present.

Mrinal Sen is one such filmmaker who has always reacted to his present, in terms of both form and content, churning out films rich in their contemporary aura.

While walking out of the Iran nuclear deal, President Trump has indicated a willingness to enter into a “new and lasting deal, one that benefits all of Iran and the Iranian people.”

This is not going to happen during his presidency, for no Iranian authority would be ready to accept an agreement solely on his terms.

Haldighati – a narrow pass of great strategic significance – marks the site of a famous battle. This is where Maharana Pratap lost a battle and was forced to retreat from the majestic Kumbhalgarh fort into the jungles of Aravali to live and fight another day.

This saga of heroism has inspired generations of Indians, including freedom fighters against the British in the 20th century. Till few months back, there was no dispute about who had won and who had lost at Haldighati. It was the invading armies sent by Akbar to subdue Mewar who had succeeded.

(This is a first-person account of the author’s interaction with a Bengali student at Aligarh Muslim University.)

I firmly believe that while you can travel the world, stay at the finest of resorts atop exotic hills to hone your writing skills, it is still the ambience and the aura of an academic institute that truly allows you to contemplate – I realised this after an almost chance encounter at Aligarh Muslim University.

In 1976, when the Emergency rule was at its peak, I remember going to the Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU) Students Union Hall to hear Kuldeep Nayyar speak out against it. We were young and idealistic and had visions for our university, our nation and ourselves, and listened to him with rapt attention.

1857 is commemorated as the ‘First War of Indian Independence’ and is treated in school history textbooks as a brief shining moment when everything seemed possible, including expelling the phirangee from this land.