They promised to change the country. Yet the streets show the same scene: red lights ahead, wailing sirens behind. Ordinary people sweat in traffic while leaders’ convoys slice through, no longer kings on elephants but rulers in SUV caravans.

Even if we accept that a few rotten elements have entered the media, and that some activists misuse the Right to Information, is it fair to put the entire community in the dock? In law, medicine, the judiciary, and politics, black sheep exist everywhere, but does that make the whole system guilty?

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay recently appointed his personal astrologer as an Officer on Special Duty in the Chief Minister’s Office. The news spread like wildfire. Reports claimed that this very astrologer had ‘predicted’ years ago that Vijay would one day rise to power. Within hours, political circles erupted. Alliance partners objected. Rationalism, constitutional values, and scientific temper were invoked. Eventually, the government was forced to retreat.

Congress politics today resembles a caravan lost in the wilderness, the path unclear, the guide uncertain. Under Rahul Gandhi's leadership, the party repeatedly stages what can only be called political ‘crow feasts’, where every half-baked statement, every hasty decision, and every weak strategy hollow out its credibility a little more. The country wants a strong opposition, but Congress often appears like a wounded traveller, one more interested in finding excuses than reaching a destination.

What happens when an alleged gang rape of a minor girl in a park turns, within minutes, from a demand for justice into a competition of rhymes?

​The cockroaches now crawling across India’s political landscape deserve close scrutiny. These self-appointed tribunes of ‘simmering discontent’ appear to have no clear programme or principles: only noise, invective and an appetite for disruption. Calling themselves the Cockroach Janta Party, they claim to speak for an outraged public. Critics, however, see them as a proxy for an opposition unable to defeat the Modi government at the ballot box.

If one day you find out that your city’s population has increased by millions, with school seats running out, long waits at hospitals, falling wages and increasing pressure on government programs, would you call it just a coincidence?

History does not change course every day. Occasionally, however, an election arrives that appears to mark the beginning of a new era. For supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party's sweeping victories in Assam and West Bengal this year represent precisely such a moment...

On 15 June 2005, India did not just pass a new law. It gave its citizens a power: the power to ask questions. Even more important, it gave them a legal right to demand answers.

In politics, change is necessary. But not every change necessarily brings improvement. Sometimes, when a system has achieved a measure of stability despite many challenges, changing it suddenly can itself become a serious risk.