My first experience with Atal-ji after joining the BJP was not very encouraging. I had been in touch with Advani-ji who was the President of the party then about joining the BJP. I worked out the details of my joining in consultation with him.

For a minute, it felt good, somewhat thrilling, to walk down Main Street exposed. I zipped past the family-friendly brunch district, footloose and fancy free.

Check out Hong Kong like a local

Had it not been the leadership of Atal-ji, I would not have learned basics that I practice in governance even today; he effortlessly demonstrated that you could oppose other politicians while being immaculately polite to them; he took questions from journalists on the toughest topics and in the most adverse of situations; his innate and unfailing f...

Exclusive excerpt from Kingshuk Nag's book Atal Bihari Vajpayee: A Man For All Seasons

The real legacy of Atal Bihari Vajpayee lies in the politics of opposition. The politics of opposition is the politics of dissent. From 1957 to 1996, he dedicated his life to exactly that. About 90 per cent of his political career was spent in the politics of opposition. Despite that Atal Bihari Vajpayee had no opponents.

He was, above all, a truly outstanding parliamentarian, so outstanding that soon after he was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1957, Pandit-ji was telling his confidantes within months that young Atal Bihari seemed to have in him the makings of a future Prime Minister. Two incidents when Atal-ji was still in his 30s illustrate this assessment.

Atal-ji for me will remain the quintessential gentleman-politician, a man whose every inch was rooted in Indian-ness. He was the Ajatshatru of Indian politics.

India is pegged to be a $1 trillion digital economy by 2025, and Bezos, Ambani, and Walmart-Flipkart all want a piece of the action.

It was not Nehru's aching desire to be PM but principally Jinnah himself, Mountbatten and his staff, the Congress Working Committee and eventually a despairing Gandhi-ji who gave up on this will o' the wisp of keeping India united by making Jinnah PM.

'Mulk' takes up the issue of terror - the proverbial albatross tied to Muslims' neck with this convenient narrative: "all Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims".

Exclusive excerpt from Rajdeep Sardesai's book Newsman: Tracking India in the Modi Era

Exclusive excerpt from Shankar Ghosh's book Scent Of A Story: A Newspaperman's Journey

The opposition in parliament is a vivid depiction of the gang that could not shoot straight. After his show-stopping hug of Modi a few weeks ago, Congress President Rahul Gandhi appears to have reverted to ho-hum mode.

While Amit Shah alluded in his intervention in parliament to Rajiv Gandhi having announced the accord during his Independence Day address to the nation next day from the ramparts of the Red Fort, he does not seem to have read the speech because Rajiv Gandhi says the accord was signed "yesterday" (14 August), then quickly corrects himself to say it ...