Explain It Clearly

There is a particular problem with Punjab politics that Hergé never anticipated. He created Tintin, the world's most relentlessly curious reporter; Captain Haddock, the world's most magnificently volatile sailor; Snowy, the dog who probably had more common sense than most of the human beings around him; and a succession of villains, treasure maps, conspiracies, lost documents and improbable adventures. But he never created Punjab. This was an editorial oversight of historic proportions. Because if Hergé had spent a little more time studying Indian politics, he would have discovered that Punjab already had most of the cast. There is a Captain. There is a man with a map. There are files. There are rival crews. There are people shouting across the deck. There are accusations. There are competing versions of reality. There are financial numbers that appear whenever somebody opens the ship's accounts. There is a government saying the voyage is going wonderfully. There is a...

* The politician India once laughed at may finally have found his rhythm. * There are few political insults more efficient than Pappu . It is short. It is portable. It requires no footnotes. It can be whispered in a television studio, shouted across a rally, dropped into a WhatsApp group and converted into a meme before the person being mocked has finished speaking. Most importantly, it comes with a soundtrack. **Pappu can't dance, saala.** For years, that was not merely a Bollywood lyric. In Indian politics, it became something approaching a constitutional doctrine. Rahul Gandhi was not simply a politician who made mistakes. He was Pappu : the eternal beginner, the political adolescent, the reluctant heir, the man who could walk into a room containing the entire machinery of the Congress party and somehow look as though he had accidentally wandered in while searching for the airport lounge. The nickname did a remarkable job of reducing a complicated political career to...

Before anyone calls the Ministry of Magic, let us clarify the joke. Hogwarts has not actually opened a campus in India. British schools have. And that is precisely why Dumbledore has been invited. British schools and universities are increasingly looking at India as a place not merely to recruit students from, but to establish a presence in. Schools, campuses and partnerships are bringing British educational brands closer to the Indian student. And suddenly an old historical joke acquires a rather modern business model: Britain is coming back to India, but this time the school gate is the port. He arrives at the school gates on a misty Monday morning. The mist is entirely unnecessary. It is simply part of the brand. Dumbledore steps out wearing his robes, carrying his wand and looking exactly like a man who has spent several centuries believing that nobody has ever questioned his authority. A delegation from the new school is waiting for him. There are trustees. There are ...