M J Akbar

Columns

Congress is going down this timeTo a friend a wave is a greeting; to a traffic policeman, an order to stop; to a barber, a curl he had better protect; to the physics student, a complicated somethi

A tipping point in Pakistan Given the track record, and growing influence of regressive conservatives in Pakistan, this news item was unusual. The Pakistan Senate's Functional Committee o

The Indian National Congress It is not difficult to define success in electoral politics; it is measured by objectives. There are, broadly, two objectives. If you are in play for power, t

Slowly but surely, it bears fruit Cuba. Vietnam. Hiroshima. Is Barack Obama trying to tell us something? I think yes. In the last months of American history’s most unexpected presidency

Who will tell the emperor?  It has been well established, since the beginning of human conflict, that success has a thousand fathers and that defeat is an orphan. But j

And he's laying down some hard truthsReal stories so often get lost in the news; and news itself becomes a passing banner in the long parade of information that sets out after breakfast on a march

Lessons from history In May 1947 Mahatma Gandhi suffered a grievous personal loss.  Chakrayya, a young Dalit disciple who had served at Sevagram Ashram since its inception in 1935, died

Self-inflicted wounds Barack Obama was in a thoughtful mood during the joint press conference with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday, his sharp mind clearly above the limit

The journey of Indian Railways Governments tend to have an institutional approach to bad news. The first hope is that the problem will resolve itself if we ignore it long enough. The second i

What next?As an enquiry, science has generally left me perplexed. During first encounters in school physics was a bit of blank and chemistry intriguing only when it lit a few flames. Mathematics w

What on earth is happening in the land of the free capitalist and the home of the brave citizen? Wonders, we have been told more than once, will never cease, but we just might be witnessing a

Hashim Amla and the ‘gentleman’s game’  There is no better way to bring in a new year than to cheer a man who can be honest about himself without slipping into the hypocrisy of false h