The journalist-turned-entrepreneur says she would love to read the epic from the point of view of the vanquished Ravana. And now she can.

With several mythological tales getting a modern makeover and imaginative retellings crowding bookshelves, Dadwal and millions of urban, educated Indians who prefer to read in English have more choices than ever before.

The trend spells good times for bestselling Indian writers such as Amish Tripathi, Ashwin Sanghi and Ashok Banker who are wooing readers with characters cast in a human mould amid a masterful weaving of mythology and suspense.

“They talk about Indian mythology, they talk about stuff which has hitherto been unheard of,” says Dadwal, 32. “It’s different from the palette which was already available.”

But it wasn’t always so. Although vernacular writers had recast myths before, the Indian publishing industry was sceptical of the demand for such fiction in English. Like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, Tripathi was rejected by a series of publishers before finding unexpected success with the first book of his Shiva trilogy, which recounts the exploits of the Hindu deity of destruction.

“The Immortals of Meluha” became a publishing phenomenon in 2010 and spawned two sequels. The trilogy sold more than 1.5 million copies in a country where a print run of a few thousand copies is good enough to be considered a bestseller. A Bollywood adaptation is also in the pipeline.

Not surprisingly, the banker-turned-author was offered a million-dollar advance this year for a new series, and he hasn’t even finalized the topic yet.

“(The growth of the genre) is a result of our increasing self-confidence as a nation,” Tripathi told Reuters over the telephone. “I think that (earlier it) wasn’t market driven, it was supply-side driven.”

“The English publishing industry itself was perhaps more geared towards catering to the Western market, explaining India to the Western market rather than finding topics which sell in the India market,” the 38-year-old writer said.

(Click here to read the India Insight interview with Amish Tripathi)

Bookstore owners in India are increasingly lining their shelves with mythological thrillers in attractive, inexpensive paperbacks that are introduced with much fanfare. Tripathi’s latest book launch featured an original soundtrack and promotions on social media have boosted sales.

Oxford Bookstore, which has a presence in nine Indian cities, is planning to add a section on retellings of Indian mythology.

“This is a bang-on genre; we shouldn’t miss it,” says Swagat Sengupta, country head of its operations and purchasing department. “And nobody should miss it actually.”

But there are still plenty of readers who are not paying heed.

For Nupur Sood, a 35-year-old banker, retelling and repackaging myths doesn’t make sense because she prefers to read something new.

“It forcefully makes me draw comparisons to what I already know,” says Sood.

Author Sanghi, whose three novels have sold more than 450,000 copies, also sounds a note of caution, saying there’s a glut of mythological fiction in Indian publishing.

“Over a period of time, publishers will also tire and you will then go back to a scenario where there will be a few titles published and will do well,” said the 44-year-old author of “The Rozabal Line”, “Chanakya’s Chant” and “The Krishna Key”.

“I think it’s all a cycle,” he added.

(Follow Sankalp on Twitter @sankalp_sp )

Before his books took pride of place in shop windows, Tripathi was already living what some would call a charmed life. A management degree at one of India’s top business schools had led to a successful career in private and retail banking. But it was his admiration for Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, that catapulted him to literary stardom in India.

When “The Immortals of Meluha” and “The Secret of the Nagas” topped bestseller lists, the 38-year-old quit his job to become a full-time writer. “The Oath of the Vayuputras,” the third book in the mythological fantasy series, was launched in March.

Tripathi spoke to Reuters about his unexpected success, why he chose to write about Shiva, and what he plans to do next.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Q: What led you to retelling myths? What was happening in Indian society or in the literary market that made you think the timing was right?
A: The question has an implicit hint that I kind of planned this … I never even wanted to be a writer, frankly. When I was young I was an academically oriented guy like most academically oriented guys. I graduated in science, did an MBA. My dreams as a young boy were I wanted to be an industrialist or I wanted to be a scientist. I never really wanted to be a writer. I know it sounds strange but I honestly believe that I didn’t pick the story, the story has picked me. I’ve written absolutely no fiction before “The Immortals of Meluha”. Not even a short story in school, absolutely nothing.

Q: So there was nothing like the right time?
A: No, it just happened to me. With due apologies to Shakespeare, some people are born writers, some people achieve it after a lot of hard work, some people have a writing career thrust upon them. I am in that last group.

Q: What led you to retell the Shiva story in the way that you did?
A: For that, I will have to give you the genesis of the books. It began as a pure philosophical thesis. A thesis on what is evil and that got converted into an adventure to convey that philosophy. And if you have to write an adventure to convey a philosophy on evil, well then the best hero is the destroyer of evil himself, Lord Shiva. And having said that, one must also say he’s a very exciting god to write about even in his traditional form. He’s a very democratic god, he never talks down to his devotees, he treats his wife with respect – something which many men, frankly, across the world can learn from. He’s a brilliant dancer, he is the god of dance, he is a brilliant musician, he’s the god of music as well, he drinks bhang, he smokes marijuana, he’s a fierce warrior. With due respect to other gods, Lord Shiva is a very cool god; he’s a fun character to write about.

Q: What kind of negative writing have you seen? It’s often hard to interpret mythological or religious epics without someone accusing you of offending religious sentiments these days.
A: No. None at all. India is probably one of the best countries to write something like this because the concept of modernising and localising myths has been a rich tradition in India for thousands of years. We just forgot this tradition for the last 200-300 years. So I always say I’m not doing anything un-Indian; in fact I’m being more Indian. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. My books have sold 1.5 million copies now. They are not really a secret. But you don’t find any protest, you don’t find any opposition. There’s no need for it … Sometimes there are books which cause controversies may be because it is perceived that they haven’t been written with due respect to God. Of course, there can be people who like the book or don’t like the book, but I think anyone who reads the book, it will be obvious to them that whoever has written the book has written it with a lot of love and respect to lord Shiva. I think at least that is obvious and that’s perhaps another reason why there hasn’t been any controversy at all.

Q: Why is there a sudden surge in Indian writing in English based on the retelling of history, mythology or an overlap of the two?
A: If you see regional language literature, analyses or parts of different myths [were] being written — there is nothing new. For example, look at Mrutyunjay in Marathi, Parva in Kannada or Mahasamar in Hindi. In English, yes but I think that is also a result of the way the English language publishing industry was. They didn’t pick subjects like this … [The trend] is a result of our increasing self-confidence as a nation. I think that [earlier it] wasn’t market driven. It was supply-side driven. The English publishing industry itself was perhaps more geared towards catering to the western market, explaining India to the western market rather than finding topics which sell in the India market.

Q: Do you think your success spawned a whole new generation of writing in this genre?
A: That’ll be very arrogant of me. I believe I am a lucky beneficiary of the changing India and I am just in the right place at the right time. My books are a very, very, very small contribution to a very great body of literature or culture which has been around for thousands of years.

Q: What next after the Shiva trilogy? What other kinds of writing have you thought about trying to do?
A: Frankly, I have many stories, ideas — all of them in the mythology- history space — to keep myself busy for the next 20 years. If it keeps selling, I’ll keep writing otherwise I’ll move back to banking. I do have a few ideas but I haven’t decided which one of them I will pick up. The deal with my publisher is a pre-emptive contract. They’ve said that of the various ideas we have discussed, whichever one I pick to write my next book series that one they’ll block.

Q: Going back to banking. Is that still an option?
A: Ya, never say never. I don’t come from a wealthy background. It’s not that I have daddy’s money to fall back on.

Q: Who are your favourite authors?
A: I am a voracious reader so it’s difficult for me to give a list of my favourite authors of all time. Of the books that I’ve read in the last four-five months, I like “Land of the Seven Rivers” by Sanjeev Sanyal, I like “India: A Sacred Geography” by Diana Eck and I like “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris.

Q: The books you read are a world away from your kind of writing.
A: In my reading habits, I like to read books which have an agenda. I am an opinionated person so I like to read opinionated books, even if I disagree with the opinion. And non-fiction books tend to have that. So they have a hypothesis and the entire book will be an attempt to build a case for that hypothesis. I like books like that. I agree it’s strange.

Q: Your books are bestsellers in India but have you thought of reaching out to international readers?
A: What Westland has is the licence to the South Asian rights of my books. A deal has been done with Quercus, which is the publisher of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. It’s a UK-based company and a deal has been signed with them for the English language rights for outside of South Asia. We have just launched “The Immortals of Meluha” in the UK two months back.

Q: What kind of market is there for this genre in America, for example, with its large Indian population?
A: My discussion with the editors at Quercus is that they feel that this could be a book that could appeal not just to NRIs (non-resident Indians) but to westerners as well. I was told by them that this is a universal story. Well of course, the Indians would approach this as the story of a god and the westerners would approach this is as the story of a hero … The good news is it’s not being backed by only an NRI outfit. It’s a proper western mainline publisher and their aim is to give it a mainline release.

Q: What advice do you have for young writers?
A: My strong suggestion, always, to writers is don’t write for money. If your purpose is to earn money, there are much better options. You could join the IT industry, you could join banking, you could join retail, you could join newswire companies. The point is there are companies where everyone makes money, which is a much wiser career option if your objective is to make money. Writing is not always the best way to make money. There are a few lucky guys, yes, who can make money but on average — not just in India, across the world — writers don’t really make that much money. I think you have to take on writing only if you have something in your mind and you want to speak it out. It’s like giving voice to your soul. Others have a choice of not listening to you but no one can stop your screaming out what you want to say. And writing is about that. So you shouldn’t write for money, you should write only for yourself. If it succeeds, great; if it doesn’t succeed, no problem. But write for yourself. If that means you have to have a job on the sides then have a job on the side. I wrote my first two books along with my job. That ensures you don’t have to make compromises on your writing just because you have to pay your bills at the end of the month.

(Follow Sankalp on Twitter @sankalp_sp)

The transformation of Arvind Kejriwal from taxman to anti-corruption activist and politician has been hard to ignore. He became something of a celebrity last year when he launched broadsides against rich, powerful people. That in turn gave him a platform to enter politics with his “Aam Aadmi Party” (party of the common man). Now Kejriwal, 44, must build a party in time to contest state-level elections in New Delhi this year.

After an hour-long election speech on a makeshift dais at a bus stand, the novice politician was visibly tired as he climbed into an off-white SUV for the journey home to Ghaziabad. I waited for him to stop coughing and take a sip of water before asking questions. We then had an animated, if one-note discussion about India’s economy and politics. The short story? Fix corruption and you fix everything else. Details about the economy, such as statistics and reports on inflation and economic growth? Just numbers for the media to repeat.

Here are some excerpts from the interview on Sunday:

Q: The Indian economy is set to grow 5 percent in this fiscal year. What do you have to say about the way our economy is growing?

A: Economy does not work in isolation and all these figures of growth do not have any meaning for a common man. It keeps on increasing and decreasing, but the life of a common man is continuously getting more and more miserable in this country. And the politics of this country has become so corrupt that economy can’t prosper without checking corruption.

Q: One of your major concerns has been high prices, but inflation is currently at a three-year low. Do you still think the government is not making enough effort to keep inflation in check?

A: Those figures are basically meant for media. You talk to a common man in this country. The common man is unable to survive now because of the rising prices. He does not care whether inflation has come down by 1 percent or increased by 1 percent. These figures have no meaning for him because zindagi jo chalti hai vo in figures se nahi chalti (figures don’t help sustain a life).

Q: If you were running the government, which five key reforms would you introduce?

A: I think that’s a very simplistic way of saying what five things would we do… First we will have to clean up the politics of this country, politics ko saaf kiye bina economics saaf nahi ho sakti (there will be no clean economics without clean politics)… [if] we were to come in power, the first thing we would do is to clean the politics of this country to check corruption. And if corruption is checked, I think most of the economic policies would be made in the interest of the people of this country and not in the interest of those people from whom bribes have been taken.

Q: What do you think should be the key focus of Budget 2013?

A: I don’t think it’ll change the lives of the people. It will again be a routine budget. They will again play with figures — inflation was 5.6 percent now, it’ll be 5.3 percent, increase, decrease, growth, 6 percent, 5.76 percent.

Q: But why do you think figures are not important?

A: Figures should be directly related to the lives of the people. These figures are related to the lives of very few people in this country. Sensex is related to very few people. Growth figure is related to the lives of very few people.

Q: You have positioned yourself as a single-issue candidate. What do you have to say about your agenda?

A: We have a stand on many things and we are finalising our stand on many of the other things, number one. Number two, let us for theoretical sake assume that we just a one-point agenda — corruption. If there is one party which can remove corruption from this country in five years, isn’t that a big thing that would happen to this country?

Q: Do you think your exposes are becoming tiring for people?

A: Each of the exposes was not done to identify any individual or to target any individual. Each of these exposes was meant to explain the rotten system that exists in our country.

Q: What will be your strategy for the upcoming Delhi polls?

A: It will keep on changing. Every day we are going to one constituency; we’ll go to 51 constituencies.

Q: Are you grooming young people into leaders?

A: We have very little time. We have to achieve in six months what these parties have in a hundred years. We have to groom [leaders], build the organization and reach right up to the village level. We have to build and identify leaders.

Q: How are you doing that?

A: It’s difficult. That is the biggest challenge we have today. I don’t have an easy answer to that.

(You can follow Sankalp on Twitter @sankalp_sp)

The incident fuelled tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours and Indian political parties have minced no words in their calls for retribution.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday called the act “barbaric” and said it was no more “business as usual” with Islamabad.

Anti-Pakistan sentiment spilled over in India in the fields of art and sports, reminiscent of the snub of Pakistani players in the cash-rich Indian Premier League after the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

Here’s a list. We’ll keep updating it.

• Indian hockey officials have released all nine Pakistani players signed up to play in a new franchise-based league after protests against the athletes in Mumbai on Sunday. (Reuters)

Around 100 members of the hardline right-wing Shiv Sena had protested at a stadium on Sunday where four Pakistani players, contracted by the Mumbai Magicians team, were practising.

• In women’s cricket, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has written to the International Cricket Council (ICC), asking if its matches in the upcoming Women’s World Cup could be shifted out of Mumbai.

The PCB says it is concerned about players’ safety in light of the Shiv Sena protests against hockey players. The World Cup begins Jan 25. (NDTV)

• Two Pakistani singers, who were to supposed to perform in India later this month, had their shows cancelled as a fallout of the Kashmir flare-up.

Javed Bashir, a classical singer, was to perform at Delhi’s Siri Fort Auditorium on Monday but the organisers decided not to go ahead with the show. (IBN Live)

Pop singer and actor Ali Zafar was scheduled to perform in Pune but protests by Shiv Sainiks led to the cancellation of the show. (IBN Live)

The death toll on the Line of Control in Kashmir is four since Jan. 6: two from India’s military, two from Pakistan’s. One thing is sure: neither side started it, judging by what you hear from both countries’ armed forces and from media reports.

The killings threaten to muffle talk of a thaw in relations, something that would have been welcome after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and years of fighting and death in Kashmir before a 2003 ceasefire.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it was prepared for an investigation by a U.N. military observer group. India’s foreign minister Salman Khurshid suggested that the situation could be contained. So why not submit to an independent probe?

The peace process has been steady lately; incidents like these — especially when only one party could be right, yet both insist the other is wrong, should be avoided. It would be a shame of the most ironic proportions to start a war over a runaway granny.

D. Suba Chandran, the director of Delhi-based think tank Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, agrees.

“It’s up to India and Pakistan to address how serious they are. But I’m quite positive this will not and this should not become a major issue at the Indo-Pak level. It should be an issue at the cross LoC level and should be settled at the LoC level.”

A similar view comes from across the border.

“It is more important to keep it going than to move fast. It is because the process has been interrupted so often that it is so tenuous,” said Beena Sarwar, editor of the Aman ki Asha (Hope for Peace) initiative.

It is a shame that you can’t seem to get a reliable report on what happened. Stories of an Indian soldier’s body being mutilated provoked anger in Indian media. On the Newshour show, Times Now Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami repeatedly asked panellists from Pakistan to admit that the mutilators were “cowards”. The channel’s consultant strategic affairs expert Maroof Raza told the Pakistani guests to “shut up”. On Headlines Today, a TV show aired with a banner which read: “Teach Pakistan a lesson“.

In Pakistan, meanwhile, blogger Ali Ahmed criticised Indian media, and seemed to suggest that, just like at the Line of Control, the Pakistani media wouldn’t be able to restrain itself from hitting back.

“The irresponsible and sensationalist stances taken by the Indian media can thus push their counterparts in Pakistan into a very uneasy corner. Already there is valid criticism on the media for not presenting Pakistan’s case as well, and as forcefully, as it should have. Parts of the media have in response taken sterner lines.”

Geo TV in Pakistan appears to be doing its own version of supporting the home team. A video about the death of soldier Muhammad Aslam carries the headline: “Indian aggression on LoC: Pakistan army soldier martyred.” The video features shots of his distraught mother crying for her son, as well as sad music to make viewers understand that this is a sad story.

There is plenty of speculation about India’s motives, such as a government or military attempt to divert attention from the Delhi rape case. (Here is one example which we spotted on Twitter today: Could this renewed LOC crossfire by #India, a ruse to make people take their focus off the Delhi rape case? Seems quite likely. #Pakistan). On Pakistan’s motives, Headlines Today’s Rahul Kanwal said on his show, “The Pakistani army wants to show the nation why it is important. It is escalating tensions as part of a deliberate, calibrated strategy.”

In a conversation that I had with Smruti S. Pattanaik, a research fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, she said that, “[S]ince there is a divergence between what the civilian government thinks and what the Pakistani army thinks, it is inevitable that India has to live with … at one hand the peace process and on the other hand this problem on the border.”

If that is the case, why wouldn’t India want a third party to investigate the incident? If Pakistan and India must live with a problem on the border, wouldn’t this be the best way to help make it go away?

(Follow Sankalp on Twitter @sankalp_sp)

(WARNING: Post contains graphic language. Reader discretion is advised. Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily of Thomson Reuters)

The gang rape and death of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi this month has sparked debates on many things from an Indian society centered on the well being of men to the tendency of Bollywood films to portray women largely as mothers or sex objects. Now, some of that criticism is sticking to Punjabi rap star Honey Singh.

Singh, whom the Indian media have called a youth icon, is facing calls for a ban on his New Year’s Eve performance at a hotel in Gurgaon, the massive suburb southwest of Delhi – and as this blog post heads out the door, NDTV reports that the show indeed has been cancelled.

Singh’s detractors say that some of his songs are misogynistic and promote a permissive and casual attitude to sexual assault.

I happen to agree. Here’s a sample:

Aja teri ch**t maroon
Tere sir se chu***y ka bhoot utaroon
Cho***ey key baad tujhe jutey maroon
Tere mooh main apna lo** dey key mo** maroon (yeah)

Loose translation of this in English would be:

Come let me f**k you,
Let me get lust off your head
Let me beat you up with my shoes after f**king u
Let me come in your mouth 

Why would a democracy ban artistic expression? I know that we have a censor board for film and television, but banning the artist doesn’t diminish the market’s desire for the product. Opposing the attitude toward women in Singh’s lyrics means asking for a refund for your ticket to his show, or simply not showing up. It means not buying more of his music or watching films in which it appears.

I tried to contact Honey Singh via Twitter and e-mail to know what he thinks about the ongoing controversy. However, the requests remain unanswered at the time of posting this blog.

But more significantly, I want to know why this is coming up today. Indian kids have been grooving to songs like “Ch**t” (“Cu*t”) for years. Did it take a woman being raped, beaten and partially disemboweled to wake up these kids, many of whom are protesting the attitude of millions upon millions of people who think about as much of a woman as the title of that song? Did anyone ever think that nearly seven years of that message seeping into the ears of the people, especially men who harass women, was doing slow damage on its own?

A recent local media report said Singh’s was the most popular music on YouTube. Another website said he received 7 million rupees (more than $127,000) for a Bollywood song, apparently the first singer ever to be signed for such a high fee.

This is because the people with the paycheck have made a bet, and not all that risky a one, that people like you and I want to hear him. That’s true. He’s a celebrity because lots of people like his work. They think it’s fun to dance to. Here’s a sample.

Maybe the Indian public is having its version of a “Sister Souljah moment”.

Some of the talk on Twitter suggests that people should spend their time looking at other ways to deal with the problem of how India treats women. Ashish Shakya (@stupidusmaximus)  tweeted “You guys are giving Honey Singh way too much importance. He’s inconsequential. Let’s talk about something else. Muffins?”

“Honey Singh is the new Sachin Tendulkar,” said Saurabh Malhotra (@CricMS). To be blamed for everything totally irrelevant to him”.

Honey Singh, above all else, is one more piece of the puzzle that India must solve to radically and quickly update its fundamental views toward women. One of the ways to do that is to think about why we can separate our desire for social justice from our desire to listen to songs called “Ch**t.”

It might be a good question for Singh to ask himself. Here’s his tweet from Dec. 29 about the rape case: “#RIPDAMINI – ashamed to be an Indian where the BIGGEST democracy in the world can’t PROTECT our women!!” The artist has discovered irony.

UPDATES

Jan. 1

Following angry reactions to offensive lyrics of the track “Ch**t”, Honey Singh’s lawyer issued a statement Monday on the singer’s behalf.

“Honey Singh wishes to clarify through this notice that he has no connection whatsoever with the said songs. My client has already written to various digital platforms to immediately take down the video/songs and is also considering appropriate legal action for defamation, loss of reputation and violation of privacy”.  (Read here)

Left unanswered in the coverage that we’ve seen so far is whether Singh and his team are saying that he didn’t even sing the song. We’re trying to find out, and will update as soon as possible.

Jan. 2

Singh, meanwhile, says he’s making a new kind of honey.  The rapper tweeted, “#HoneySinghIsInnocent – trend if you’re with me! I’ve admitted that my past was a wrong choice but now I deliver completely different music!”

(Follow Sankalp on Twitter @sankalp_sp)

India took 50 years to come up with a definition for what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace, courtesy of a Supreme Court judgement 12 years ago.

It makes you wonder where parliament has been, considering that there is no law to deal with the offense.

This may change soon. The Lok Sabha in September 2012 passed the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill. If approved by the Rajya Sabha, the law would give women a way to seek help from the government when confronted with predatory practices at work.

But here’s the funny part: the bill takes for granted that all potential offenders are men. That’s understandable, considering that sexual harassment usually begins with a man and is aimed at a woman. While the empirical evidence of sexual harassment against men may not be prominently reported and thus hard to ascertain, it does not mean that men cannot be victimised by other men or women at work.

Many countries including Denmark, Australia and Switzerland have sexual harassment laws that are applicable to males and females alike. One could argue that the socio-economic milieu in India is different from the West, but we must not forget that the patriarchal nature of society in the country also stereotypes men as perpetual aggressors.

Nevertheless, this topic could come up more often as more Indian businesses style themselves after the kinds of workplaces and workplace environments that their executives have learned about elsewhere in Asia, Europe and the western hemisphere. Sexual harrasment is a well known problem in many modern, white-collar workplaces, and there is no reason to expect that it won’t crop up more in the future.

Men facing harassment may be afraid to report it for fear of being mocked — particularly in India where, like it or not, a man is supposed to be a MAN. A gender-neutral anti-harassment law could help them.

The introduction of a law against harassment would be a milestone in the Indian legal system, one that the Ministry of Women and Child Development should not be in a hurry to achieve. A constructive dialogue with the civil society, legal experts and both men and women’s rights groups may help carve a bill that may pave the way for a society in which people better understand the challenges that both genders face.

It might even help make India a better place to live for everyone.

Talk of a trust vote, foreign direct investment in retail, and 102 bills pending overall – this is what the agenda for the winter session of parliament could have been. It was, actually, but sometimes things just get in the way.

Day one of the winter session started in the same way that the last session ended: opposition parties protesting over various contentious topics. Also, on the first day, the speaker rejected a motion to trigger early elections with a no-confidence vote.

Quite clearly, politicians only say they prefer a healthy debate. But before that debate could even begin, something else happened.

On Wednesday, the Shiv Sena proposed the adjournment of parliament as a mark of respect to deceased Shiv Sena Chief Bal Thackeray in Mumbai. The BJP also backed the proposal.

It almost reminds you of the monsoon session earlier this year. Rainfall was below normal, but it was enough to wash out the session.

With only 16 working days in this session, politicians should have never demanded an adjournment.

Thackeray might have been a beloved firebrand nationalist for some and a religious zealot for others, but it’s up for debate whether his death last week should have shut down India’s national legislative body, let alone Mumbai. Thackeray’s death also makes me wonder whether parliament should be adjourned for the death of any politician, including a sitting member of the house.

Rather, as a mark of respect, legislators could observe a two-minute silence. Given that parliament is the cornerstone of our democracy, allowing it to function the way it should is perhaps the best way to pay homage to a great leader.

One could argue that there is precedent of parliament not functioning as a mark of respect to the death of eminent politicians such as Vilasrao Deshmukh. But does that mean we will never change the way our democratic institutions function?

Also, the adjournment of parliament to pay respect to a dead leader may not be an intolerable idea if the voting populace is assured that no session will be disrupted thereafter. But a smooth session remains a distant dream, the unbecoming example of which was set by repeated adjournments of both houses on the first day of the winter session.

Politicians need to change and set examples. The least they can do is engage in debates and stop disrupting parliament.

(You can follow Sankalp on Twitter @sankalp_sp )

It seemed like a typical Wednesday, at least till the morning calm was shattered by the din of television channels announcing the execution of perhaps India’s most hated villain — Mohammad Ajmal Kasab.

On the morning of Nov. 21, India hanged Kasab, the only surviving member of a militant squad that attacked Mumbai in 2008. His hanging, just days before the fourth anniversary of the attacks, was done amid great secrecy, perhaps fearing a violent backlash.

Kasab’s death brings a sense of closure for the victims and survivors of the attacks and will certainly be a boost for the Congress-led coalition. At least, one chapter of this gruesome attack which happened while they were in power is now closed.

After a lengthy trial and spending at least 260 million rupees of taxpayer’s money on Kasab’s upkeep, his execution had been imminent.

But no one expected the Rashtrapati Bhawan to be so quick. The rejection of Kasab’s plea by President Pranab Mukherjee and his speedy execution show India’s resolve to deal sternly with militancy.

The key now is to sustain the momentum and clear all mercy petitions pending before the president as soon as possible.

India has a bad track record when it comes to mercy petitions and should act swiftly in the 14 other pending clemency pleas.

The opposition has already shifted focus to Afzal Guru, sentenced to death in 2004 for his involvement in the attack on the Indian parliament 11 years ago, as he still awaits the gallows. Pressure from political groups in Kashmir and human rights activists as also a discord among its own rank and file forced the government to put his execution on the backburner. Similar political wrangling has been the reason for the delay in the hanging of Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted in the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh.

If the Indian legal system allows the death penalty, the process should be expedited and mercy petitions should not gather dust in the Rashtrapati Bhavan for years. We should follow the same rules for everyone and not allow politics to take precedence over the rule of law.

It is time the president acts quickly on all pending mercy petitions within a fixed timeframe. If this doesn’t happen, enthusiasm over Kasab’s execution will be short lived and India will continue to be a country where justice is delayed and hence denied.

(You can follow Sankalp on Twitter @sankalp_sp)

(Opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters.)

In what is most likely the last cabinet reshuffle for the UPA-II government  before the 2014 general elections, 22 ministers were sworn in at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Sunday.

Here is the background, as explained by Frank Jack Daniel and Mayank Bhardwaj of Reuters:

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave his cabinet an overdue facelift on Sunday, bringing in younger ministers in a bid to breathe new life into his aged, scandal-tainted government ahead of state and federal elections. The reshuffle, which has been on the cards for six months, may be Singh’s last chance to significantly change the direction of his government and convince voters the ruling Congress party deserves a third consecutive term in 2014.

The rejig, most analysts say, was done to create a team that will lead the government in the run-up to the polls. While Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, chose not to join the government and work for the Congress party, the new-look government with a mix of young guns and experienced politicians is a welcome step. Here’s why I think some of the key players will do well at their new jobs.

• Salman Khurshid: A Congress MP from Uttar Pradesh’s Farrukhabad constituency has joined the ranks of the “big four” in the union cabinet, having been named India’s External Affairs Minister. In replacing goof-prone S.M. Krishna with Khurshid, the Congress has not only shown faith in the latter’s political skills, but has also snubbed civil society activist-turned politician Arvind Kejriwal, who has accused Khurshid of corruption.  Indian diplomacy and foreign policy could see some positive changes under the leadership of this 59-year-old lawyer.
• Shashi Tharoor: A former U.N. diplomat, Tharoor’s first innings as a minister of state lasted less than a year. The erudite Tharoor couldn’t get used to the Indian political climate, and his public comments and witticisms often displeased the Congress leadership until he was asked to resign over the IPL controversy.  Re-inducted into the government as a minister of state in the Human Resource Development Ministry, the Fletcher School graduate can be expected to push the government’s educational reforms and improve the implementation of the Right to Education Act.
• Kapil Sibal: Once bitten, the twice-shy Congress-led UPA government seems to be in no mood to take any chances with the upcoming 2G spectrum auction, and has relieved Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal of the additional charge of the HRD Ministry. An astute politician, Sibal will try to ensure the government keeps its head high after a successful airwaves auction.
• Sachin Pilot: Having drawn praise from Sibal for his role as the Minister of State, Communications and Information Technology, Pilot will now be looking after the Corporate Affairs Ministry. A member of the Rahul Gandhi’s so-called youth brigade, Pilot has been given the portfolio at a time when India Inc holds its breath over a new Companies bill and changes in the Competition Act.
• Jyotiraditya Scindia: The cabinet reshuffle witnessed the 41-year-old Scindia’s rise to “power”, quite literally. As minister of state for power, the Guna MP will be expected to tackle successfully the challenges of chronic energy shortages in a country that witnessed one of the world’s worst blackouts in July this year.
• Veerappa Moily: The Petroleum Ministry is one portfolio than can tilt the balance for or against any party in the elections. Moily has a tough job – one in which he has to ensure that the “aam aadmi”, or “common man”, does not have to dig deep into his pockets for petrol, diesel and cooking gas while trying to reign in the subsidy burden of the government.
• Manish Tewari: One of the most well known faces on Indian news channels, where as Congress spokesman he defended his party against the brickbats of the opposition and many a TV anchor, this lawmaker from Ludhiana will now be in charge of regulating the very media that adored him. Who could have been a better choice to helm the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting than the media-savvy Tewari?
• Pawan Kumar Bansal: A Congress lawmaker from Chandigarh, Bansal will now head the Ministry of Railways, a coveted portfolio that political parties often use to push their populist agenda. The Congress has cleverly desisted from giving away the railways to a coalition ally and can use the ministry to win the votes of a populace angered by the numerous corruption allegations against the party’s MPs.