If Paris is a failure of natural justice, the Indian end of the story is one of systemic abuse.

But the most bizarre item of news surrounding the meeting is this: It will be the first time Modi and Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh will be in the same room after ethnic conflict broke out in the state on May 3 last year.

Overall, of the 57 seats being polled today, a back of the envelope calculation suggests the BJP could end up losing 9 or more of the 30 it is defending — and that is in the normal course, assuming there is no real wave against the ruling party.

Narendra Modi’s loss of control of the narrative, evident in his increasingly shrill, grievance-ridden recycling of the dated tropes of 2019, coupled with the self-inflicted loss of his ‘anti-corruption crusader’ image, is one such event.

2019 was the party’s breakout year, when it stretched the boundaries of what was thought possible and ended up with 303 seats on its own steam. Now it is forced to play defence, on a pitch queered by too many variables.

For the BJP to live up to its 370-seat goal, it needs to retain every seat it currently holds, win back the 14 seats eroded in course of the Lok Sabha’s tenure *and win 67 additional seats*.

Seriously, I am embarrassed. How, and when, did we become this country?

The protest against the CAA has fully morphed into a revolution against the government; it is now no longer about a single issue but about all the discontents that have simmered beneath the surface for the past few years.

Sindhu has, in a little over a year, gone in her own estimation from talented up-and-comer to bona fide champion.

The list of powerful figures who held office in the BCCI at the time it failed to act against corruption is illuminating: Rajiv Shukla and Jyotiraditya Scindia of the Congress; Sharad Pawar of the NCP; Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley of the BJP...

The Lodha Commission appears to be guided by a fundamental premise: that if cricket in India is to be cleaned up, this has to be on the basis of a revised constitution that is better suited to the era of cricket as big business.

Culled in no particular order from the questionnaire framed by the Lodha Commission, these questions are representative of the tenor its directions of inquiry.