FOUR BODIES.FIVE SUSPECTS.SIX MOTIVES.With a deadly pandemic reaching its peak across the country, the last thing Inspector Mona Ramteke, in Hyderabad training to be an ACP, wants is to be roped into a high-profile investigation. But when news arrives quite suddenly that four distinguished employees of a prominent media house have died in their office cabins on the same day, at around the same time, Mona is summoned...

Pointing to the horizon where the sea and sky are joined, he says, 'It is only an illusion because they can't really meet, but isn't it beautiful, this union which isn't really there.' -- SAADAT HASAN MANTO Sometime in 2016, a series of dialogues took place which set out to find a meeting ground, even if only an illusion, between A.S. Dulat and Asad Durrani. One was a former chief of RAW, India's external intelligence agency, the other of ISI, its Pakistani counterpart. As they could not m...

Vajpayee PMO member's account of the quest for peace in a troubled stateThere comes a day in one's life when one feels it should all be put down before memory fades. There are endless memories and I have carried a story with me for a long time. SRINAGAR IN THE WINTER OF 1989 was an eerie ghost town witnessing the beginnings of a war dance. The dam burst the night boys from the separatist JKLF group were freed in exchange for the release of Rubaiya Sayeed, the Union home minister's d...

What drives policy choices in the world’s largest democracy, and how do analysts shape decisions that affect more than a billion people?Bringing together leading scholars and seasoned practitioners, Policy Analysis in India maps the evolution of policy analysis since the country became independent and reveals how analysis is conducted across ministries, sectors and levels of government. Through rich empirical cases – from education, policing and international organisations to fisca...