Sobhana K. Nair has certainly managed to do justice to the task of writing a biography on Paswan and unravelling his life; and she has brought out his personality with her racy style and without holding back any punches.

The Bharat Ratna to Charan Singh, now, indeed comes with a host of ironies. But then it seems consistent with what he set in motion in the political discourse where ideals shall wait for another day or time backstage.

In 'Shunting the Nation', the mainstay of the author's work is far too sketchy and based on a limited set of sources. The author ends up repeating facts too often and ensures that the reader is left with a sense of fatigue.

Aditya Mukherjee's Political Economy of Colonial and Post-Colonial India is a useful perspective on an important dimension of our past that has implications for our present.

The task that Rahul Gandhi and his colleagues seem to have set themselves is to ensure that the party does not slide into the moribund state in parts of the country where it remains relevant.

Written by Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the subject's daughter, the book reads more like a hagiography and highlights the need for a fresh attempt to do justice to the life and times of a true political colossus.

Debashish Mukerji's autobiography traces the former Indian prime minister's persona and the socio-political context in which he evolved.

By evoking Gandhi in the Supreme Court's contempt proceedings, the lawyer has contextualised the need to 'test' all laws to see if they further the quest for justice instead of simply being etched in stone.

In 1978, a contempt case played out quite differently than how it did recently.

The various illegal and legal but illegitimate means used by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975-76 could still be used to suppress the rights of the media today.

More than anything, the communist legacy in Kerala is that it made the idea of equality integral to society.

The Narendra Modi government could have appealed against the Delhi high court order absolving Rajiv Gandhi of any corruption charges after it assumed power in 2014, but it didn't.

If the hunger for power stimulated the players in 1967, the desire for self-preservation is certainly strong enough to guide the unity of opposition forces today.

From 1967, an attempt was made to form grand coalition of forces primed against the Congress party, under the leadership of Ram Manohar Lohia.

The majority of our people are alive because they work hard, have very little money, and their life, day after day, is turning unstable even while they are ruled by a stable government. It is this instability that will matter when they go to vote in 2019.

Karnataka's fractured mandate ensured that former BJP MLA and Karnataka's governor Vajubhai Vala was pushed into the spotlight. By law, the governor is bound to invite H.D. Kumaraswamy to form the government, so which way will he tilt?

By amending the central committee resolution on doing business with the Congress party, the Left party has shown its willingness to understand the objective reality and change its strategic line.

While the ‘other’ in 1989 was the Congress, it will be Narendra Modi’s BJP in 2019.