Right now China and India are glaring at each other across Doklam, the contested ground along the Sino-Indian frontier high in the Himalayas. It was the Himalayan border that prompted their last serious fight, when China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) dealt the Indians a short, sharp defeat in 1962. But any future war might not be fought on the h...

Over the weekend, I visited Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad where Rohit Shetty was shooting the title track of his next comedy Golmaal Again. This is what happened

Ahmed Patel, senior Congress leader and political secretary to Sonia Gandhi, has an affable demeanour with a strict avoidance of displays of emotion. Yet, after his roller coaster ride to his fifth Rajya Sabha seat from home state Gujarat, at 2:30 am, Patel, a night bird, was visibly moved as he hugged his son Faesal.

However the Doklam crisis is eventually resolved, it should not obscure the potential for genuine cooperation with China in tackling another crisis - one with arguably greater stakes for India and the world at large.

The Education Minister, Vinod Tawde, and the Vice Chancellor of Mumbai University, Dr Sanjay Deshmukh are very comfortable with their job security despite an embarrassing 111 days of not declaring the results of the exams. Per law, this is required within 45 days of examinations. It will probably be 115 days when you read this.

While the nation remains riveted on developments in the Doklam plateau, not enough is being said or considered about our relations with the cis-Himalayan states, Nepal and Bhutan, that constitute a critical part of the bulwark of our defence in any major confrontation with China.

Nitish's somersault has not only numbed the entire opposition but also civil society which is in shock with the change of the political and social climate in the last three years. It has killed hope. It has come as a psychological blow.

A conscience without power achieves little for the people. Power without conscience ruins the moral core of a democracy.

"Shah has a personal grudge against me which is why they are going all out using the most underhand means that I have ever seen in my 40 years of politics to ensure that I lose. Money power, muscle power, you name it - they have deployed it," Ahmed Patel told me in an exclusive interview.

The political dictionary used by Modi admirers reflects to some degree the burial of political principles that has come to dominate public life today. Nitish Kumar's outright betrayal of the anti-BJP electoral mandate on the basis of which he became Bihar's Chief Minister is described as "a political master stroke."

The Congress looks like it is losing the plot in Gujarat and the BJP is further consolidating itself there. The blow the party has taken in Mahatma Gandhi's land is in many ways more severe than the one in Bihar, where it was only a junior partner in the Maha-gathbandhan with 27 members in the house of 243. But like in Bihar, the discomfiture in Gu...

Is it a manifestation of a troubled quest for identity that is being traduced by Modi's version of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan?

Given how much Shah travels - across the country in states heading for election, lunching with Dalits and mobilizing cadre, many are wondering what Narendra Modi has in store for his closest confidante and effective Number Two.

Did Kumar's inner voice take on urgency after his Saturday meeting with Congress No 2 Rahul Gandhi, who was assigned by his mother and Congress Chief Sonia Gandhi to the job of managing Kumar and ensuring that he did not defect, thereby inflicting a body blow to opposition unity?

Nitish Kumar could have done nothing better in his life than be a politician - he has maneuvered his career graph with great deftness and a flair for political calculation.