A deeper mining of date from Election 2024 yields some interesting findings.

In this issue

12-07-202429 STORIES

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Letters

Readers respond to Frontline’s coverage.

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New books on the shelves

An astute fictional analysis of loneliness, first-hand accounts by intrepid Muslim women travellers from the 17th century onwards, and much more.

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Murder is announced

Krishnan Srinivasan’s novel featuring retired diplomat Michael Marco and feisty private detective Koel Deb is peppy and perceptive.

Ways of unseeing: The art of overanalysing art

A kind of criticism dwells in the distance created between art and meaning. Why is the obvious so suspect? Why is the surface not nourishing enough?

Prathyush Parasuraman

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Palestinian mother’s saga of navigating love, loss, and liberation

Huzama Habayeb’s novel, deftly translated by Kay Heikkinen, evokes family bonding, tenderness, and women’s resilience with a joyful clamour.

Latha Anantharaman

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The Modi model

Christophe Jaffrelot explains the authoritarian model of governance Modi had formulated as Chief Minister, which he later implemented at the Centre.

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Julia Hauser’s plague chronicle fascinates but falls short on promised insights into pandemics’ societal toll

The Moral Contagion follows the strategy of complementing facts about the bubonic plague with fictionalised elements and creative gestures.

In a parched landscape, a dance competition keeps artists’ dreams alive

The Prakriti Excellence in Contemporary Dance Awards has created an ecosystem for dancers in India, where resources and opportunities remain scarce.

Rashtriya Janata Dal president and former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad being welcomed by villagers with dhol during a byelection campaign at Bhagwanpur in 1994.

Broken Promises breaks little new ground in chronicling Bihar’s troubled 1990s

Mrityunjay Sharma’s book on Bihar under Lalu Prasad documents a dark era, but falls short on analysis and rigour.

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‘Gangster’: A Marathi story in translation

Translated by Jerry Pinto.

Editor’s Note: What the 2024 election results mean for India

A fundamental reset in the BJP’s functioning is unlikely. One will see more hypocritical posturing by Modi while his stormtroopers do the opposite.

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How the Lok Sabha election 2024 bust the urban-rural myth

The BJP has lost more ground in rapidly urbanising areas—places witnessing faster rural-to-urban transition—than in areas seeing slower urbanisation.

Shamindra Nath Roy,Ashish Ranjan

Chandrababu Naidu: Walking a tightrope

The technocrat must balance welfare and development in his fourth term as Chief Minister if he wants to keep his rural voters on board.

Akhilesh Yadav, chief of the regional Samajwadi Party, gestures before the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc’s meeting in New Delhi, India, June 5, 2024. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Rise of the regionals

The biggest takeaway from the 2024 election is that regional parties, whose future had been written off during the saffron wave, are back with a bang.

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez stands outside his house on his 87th birthday in Mexico City in this file photo from March 6, 2014.

Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s new novel challenges readers to look beyond the magic

The posthumous release of Until August prompts readers to reexamine Márquez’s storytelling techniques and themes of memory and reality.

Dakshayini Suresh

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Art and the political imagination

An ongoing exhibition in Paris upholds Palestinian right to statehood by displaying works by artists from populations uprooted or exiled by violence.

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The changing face of Dalit politics

New Age leaders are changing the narrative of Dalit politics by focussing on pragmatic issues rather than on personality cults and identity politics.

Jitan Ram Manjhi: Breaking barriers

Manjhi, the oldest Minister in the Modi Cabinet and a member of the Mahadalit Musahar community, is aware of the expectations from him.

How agrarian anger powered the INDIA bloc juggernaut and gave BJP a major setback

In States that were the site of farmer protests, the BJP suffered major losses, despite its government making many overtures to the peasant community.

T.K. Rajalakshmi

Dravidian parties at a crossroads

For Dravidian majors, the rise of BJP and NTK serves as a wake-up call: Tamil Nadu politics may no longer remain bipolar as the field grows crowded.

Ilangovan Rajasekaran

Reinventing Rahul Gandhi

Through this election, a new Rahul emerged: confident, irreverent, assertive, yet accessible.

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Will the setback to Hindutva politics force Modi 3.0 to rethink economic policies?

Even though pressure mounts on the new government to address economic concerns, entrenched political objectives may hinder substantial policy shifts.

C.P. Chandrasekhar

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A vote for constitutional values

Modi government’s actions belittling constitutional values opened up space for opposition parties to revive the struggle to protect the Constitution.

Venkatanarayanan S.

The RSS sends a message

Sangh Parivar’s comments on party strategy and leadership qualities hint at a change in power balance within the BJP and in its equation with the RSS.

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Karnataka: The southern outlier

Its unique politics have contributed to its non-typical Dravidian culture in which minorities, backward classes, and Dalits are equally significant.

Cynthia Stephen

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Unrest in Jiribam deepens divides between Meitei and Kuki-Zo in Manipur

As violence engulfs all communities, the region plunges deeper into crisis with no resolution on the horizon, shattering hopes for peace, stability.

Sushanta Talukdar

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Engineer Rashid’s defiant victory a turning point for Kashmir’s democratic future

Abdul Rashid Sheikh’s electoral win in Baramulla, while in jail, against National Conference’s Omar Abdullah, indicates a shift in voter sentiment.

Iftikhar Gilani

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Maharashtra: All sides get ready for a bigger battle

The Lok Sabha election results have shaken the ruling NDA and given the opposition MVA a distinct advantage in the Assembly election later this year.

Is it the end of the road for the Akali Dal?

Even as Punjab itself is in a deep political churn, the Shiromani Akali Dal is yet to reinvent itself after the breakdown of its alliance with BJP.

Ashutosh Sharma

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