Shekhar Gupta

How many, in a Mumbai room full of Hermes ties and finance whizkids, are Dalit? What if Mahesh Bhatt's son, David Headley's friend, had been a Muslim? Why is Delhi getting better as a city and Mumbai going downhill? When did the Congress first start shrinking its prime minister? When did it become clear that Narendra Modi would take over his party? Who are the HMTs? And what does an angry Arvind Kejriwal say about us? Raising such questions is the hallmark of Shekhar Gupta's National Interest, the most eagerly awaited news and current affairs column in Indian journalism. Informed by three decades and more of formidable reporting and a credibility that gives Gupta unrivalled access to decision makers in government, politics and business, the best of these columns in Anticipating India explain and interpret, provoke and predict change for more than a billion people. A riveting first draft of modern Indian history, Anticipating India interprets everything from the successes and failings of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh to the ascent of Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal, from the forces that have deepened Indian federalism and constitutionalism to the public mood that keeps a check on excesses in the use of political power. Each chapter in Anticipating India, in its questioning of power, its use and abuse, carries within it ideas of India that challenge conventional wisdom, shatter stereotypes and, in the end, question our long-held assumptions of who we are as a nation and a people.

Anticipating India

Khushwant Singh

Sunil Sethi

Tavleen Singh

Amarjit Kaur

Lt Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora

MV Kamanth

Subhash Kirpekar

6 June 1984: The Indian Army storms the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Called Operation Bluestar, the historic and unprecedented event ended the growing spectre of terrorism perpetrated by the extremist Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers once and for all. But it left in its wake unsolved political questions that continued to threaten Punjab's stability for years to come. How, in a brief span of three years, did India's dynamic frontier state become a national problem? Who was to blame: the central government for allowing the crisis to drift despite warnings, or the long-drawn-out Akali agitation, or the notorious gang of militants who transformed a holy shrine into a sanctuary for terrorists? First published two months after Operation Bluestar, The Punjab Story pieces together the complex Punjab jigsaw through the eyes of some of India's most eminent public figures and journalists. Writing with the passion and conviction of those who were involved with the drama, they present a wide-ranging perspective on the past, present and future of the Punjab tangle; and the truth of many of their'conclusions having been borne out by time.

The Punjab Story

In the fourteen years of NDTV's Walk The Talk Shekhar Gupta has interviewed more than 600 stellar guests-an outstanding feature for one of Indian TV news channel's most respected shows is the wide diversity of its guests. These range from heads of states to national, regional and international politicians and public figures, from Indian and global film stars to Nobel Laureates, scientists, economists, sports stars (not limited to cricket), spiritual gurus, business tycoons, philanthropists and, of course, activists. This book focuses exclusively on political leaders and public figures. Many of these conversations are path-breaking, and some extremely rare. For example, leaders like Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao have never before engaged in freewheeling, recorded conversations in such detail. Others have broken new ground since-Narendra Modi, L.K. Advani, Pranab Mukherjee, Mayawati and even M. Karunanidhi. There are also global thought leaders and heads of state: David Cameron, Henry Kissinger, and Pushp Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', among others. There is also the rarest of rare interviews with the former RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan. It was challenging to choose just twenty-five political personalities and voices to feature in this selection. And one criterion has been to try and pick those conversations that mark political shifts and change. Hopefully, these will help provide an understanding of recent political history, and how we have reached the point we are at today, in the words of these very significant and interesting people.

Decoding Politicians

Walk the Talk

Shekhar Gupta

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