2026

[fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
Decoding Indian Politics by P S Jayaramu
Writers Choice Publications Pvt Ltd., New Delhi.
ISBN NO 978-93-49389-02-1
No of pages: 260
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This book is a compilation of articles written by Prof. P S Jayaramu, formerly Professor of Political science in Bangalore University. An ardent writer and a scholar of Political science and International relations, Professor Jayaramu has produced many students and has guided scholars, has been (…)

For most of my life I have read political writing with a sense of duty rather than desire. I read to stay informed, not to feel changed. The books I encountered often seemed to assume a reader who could absorb weight without needing warmth, and I finished them more knowledgeable, but no more connected to the world they described.
When I picked up the memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me, I expected the same. I did not expect the book to reach the private interior of my reluctance or alter the (…)

To the vast majority, who thought their past to be multicultural, tragic, and complex, the idea of glorification of the past along with historiographical singularity will always feel stimulating. What it attempts to demonstrate is the glorious achievements of the past and how drastically the deterioration of that position has taken place. This artistic formula has been adopted by almost all authoritarian, fascist, and democratically strained nations. The political leader, in order to appeal (…)

What’s happening in Bengal, the way the Election Commission has not merely facilitated the loot of the Bengal polling but became an unabashed participant in this mayhem and dacoity throughout the state, doesn’t surprise me one bit frankly, as I wrote in my previous piece that even if the Trinamul Congress TMC) were to scrape through by sheer grit, this is no Election when the bulk of voters prima facie suspects in the eyes of the BJP, have been literally weeded out and disenfranchised.
But (…)

May 5, 2026
Results of the much awaited assembly elections held in five States are out throwing up numerous questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the contending Political Parties, their strategies and the implications of the outcome for national and regional politics.
Let me start my analysis with the smallest of the States, Puducherry first. The contest did not attract much media glaze as it was more or less a forgone conclusion that the NDA would return to power. Mr. (…)

In the current assembly elections, the BJP has come to power in West Bengal with a landslide victory, defeating its nearest rival, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC). This is the first time that a party which distinctly preaches

Abstract
The recent Assembly electoral, 2026 setback of the

[May 8, 2026]
by Kunal Chattopadhyay
The 2026 West Bengal Assembly election was possibly the most important, not just for the province of West Bengal, but with an all India significance. The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies had found in the 2024 Parliamentary elections that they had gone over the peak and were in a decline. With the bulk of India

Abstract: The democratic imagination assumes the existence of a freely deliberating citizen. This assumption is being attacked not just by the dissemination of fake news, but by a larger-scale, systemically-oriented reality, the active creation of cognitive spaces where independent thought cannot occur. Building off neuro-cybersecurity as analytic frame and the conceptualisation of cognitive warfare in the literature on international security, this paper states that the electoral ecosystem (…)

Abstract
The 130th birth anniversary of Morarji Desai provides a critical opportunity to reassess his contributions through the lens of political theory and democratic practice. As India