Mani Shankar Aiyar – Author, NDTV.com

Opinion: With Notes Ban, Shock And Awe Was Modi's Focus. Now, This Mess

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Friday November 18, 2016

What is happening is happening because Modi is who he is: vain, arrogant, self-obsessed, domineering. He wants to be the only one on the stage, the only one on whom the limelight is playing, the sole recipient of all applause. So he insulates himself from advice, fiercely concentrates decision-making in himself, personalizes governance, and projects only himself.

Opinion: Modi Move To Divide Will Come Up Against Ambedkar's Brilliance

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Wednesday November 09, 2016

Ever since the Hindutvists arrived 30 months ago on the throne of power, they have been searching for ways and means of by-passing the secular, democratic, constitutional order to push their discriminatory sectarian agenda only to discover that Dr Ambedkar's constitution blocks them at every turning.

Opinion: Muslims, Not Saffron Brigade, Must Settle Triple <i>Talaq</i>

Opinion: Muslims, Not Saffron Brigade, Must Settle Triple Talaq

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday November 01, 2016

The strictest school of Sunni jurisprudence, the Salafi, holds that triple talaq "is not in keeping with the Quran and the hadith", according to none other than the leader of the Indian Salafis, Maulana Asghar Ali Imam Mehdi.

Opinion: Why This Modi-Putin Agreement Should Worry Us

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday October 25, 2016

How then is it possible to cheer the Modi-Putin Goa agreement for two more units at Kudankulam when even one unit has not, after 28 years, got going efficiently or with proven safety? The Japanese at least have decentralized decision-making to the point where a district panchayat president (which is what the Governor of a Japanese Prefecture is) can defy the Japanese ...

Opinion: Modi's Heady Oratory Fails To Move Xi On Pakistan

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Friday October 21, 2016

"Tragically, the mother-ship of terrorism is a country in India's neighbourhood. Terror modules around the world are linked to this mother-ship". Later in the day, he continued that this country "embraces and radiates the darkness of terrorism". Not one of his fellow-summiteers endorsed this view.

Opinion: Vajpayee's Biting Criticism, At Age 36, Of Nehru During A Time Of War

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Wednesday October 12, 2016

To the saffron brigade, I say, look to your own leader, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and see how biting was in his criticism of a government at war, how frank and open he was in his critique of government policy, and learn from him the lessons in democracy that he and Nehru taught and practiced - and that you are denying us today.

Opinion: Surgical Strikes During UPA Too. What Has Modi Changed?

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Thursday October 06, 2016

The difference between UPA strikes and BJP strikes is that instead of leaving it is as a localized military retaliation as in the past, the Modi government has played up the 29 September strikes publicly and through the media as unprecedented "strong" action against state-sponsored Pakistani terrorists.

Opinion: Modi's Pak Policy Lies Completely In Tatters

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday September 27, 2016

It is all very well for our External Affairs Minister to say that "such countries should have no place in the comity of nations" - but who is going to bell the American cat?

Opinion: The Cauvery Feud: Betrayal And Rash Decisions

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Wednesday September 21, 2016

What are the lessons to be learned from this experience? One, no purpose is served by resorting to quasi-judicial proceedings in tribunals or administrative bodies like the toothless Cauvery River Authority.

Opinion: Modi Government's High-Tech Obsession Is Damaging In These Ways

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Wednesday September 14, 2016

I do not expect the Modi government to mend its ways but do note that neglect of the lakhs and lakhs of elected representatives has already lost the BJP 75 per cent of the positions in Gujarat's Panchayat Raj Institutions. Technological gee-gaws do not vote; people do.

Opinion: Raman Singh Is Circumventing A Supreme Court Order That Shamed Him

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Wednesday September 07, 2016

Describing the Chhattisgarh government's "muscular and violent statecraft" as "bleak and miasmic", the court deplored Raman Singh's resort to "the iron fist". It amounted, they said, to establishing a social order "in which any person is treated as suspect" and "anyone speaking for human rights is deemed as suspect".

Opinion: Modi Government Follows This Rajiv Gandhi Policy - Without Mentioning Him

Mani Shankar Aiyar | Tuesday August 30, 2016

The Action Plan for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free and Nonviolent World Order that Rajiv Gandhi presented to the international community remains, 28 years on, the only detailed roadmap ever prepared by a Head of Government to show how, in phases spread over 22 years, the world could move towards a universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable international regime of eliminatin...

Opinion: Enraged Kashmiri Youth Will Not Be Brought Around Easily

OPINION