close_game
close_game
Manu Joseph
Articles by Manu Joseph

Manu Joseph’s Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous: Read an excerpt

In his new novel, Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous, Manu Joseph takes a hard look at not just the political class and law enforcement agencies, but also “the good folks”. In this excerpt, Mukundan, an intelligence agent, is on the trail of two terror suspects.

Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous is Manu Joseph’s third novel.(Shutterstock)
Updated on Sep 17, 2017 10:09 AM IST
Hindustan Times | By

Why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already won the demonetisation gambit

It is rare for people to have an accommodating view of a sudden policy that only has long-term benefits, especially one that has hurt them. But there is observable evidence that the general public is with Modi on this

A long queue in front of Syndicate Bank near ITO, New Delhi, India, November 15, 2016(Arun Sharma/HT)
Updated on Nov 18, 2016 12:52 AM IST

There’s a serious problem with modern democracy, but what is the alternative?

Democracies will not voluntarily and peacefully cease to be democracies. Once people have tasted rights, especially under the umbrella of a righteous political idea, they would not want to lose them

Protesters in downtown Pretoria, South Africa, November 2. Thousands of South Africans are demonstrating for the resignation of President Jacob Zuma, who has been enmeshed in scandals that critics say are undermining the country's democracy.(AP)
Updated on Nov 10, 2016 07:37 AM IST

Nationalism will improve air quality

India’s neo-nationalism is searching for respectable shames and urban air quality is a worthy disgrace. We must not underestimate what nationalism can achieve when it is inspired by shame instead of pride

Office goes rushing to office while a blanket of haze and smog enveloped Delhi, October 31.(Ajay Aggarwal/HT)
Published on Nov 02, 2016 09:31 PM IST

By ‘negotiating’ with Raj Thackeray, the BJP government has diminished itself

The Ae Dil Hai Mushkil drama is very similar to what happened in late 2014 to Sony’s The Interview, a film in which two American journalists are assigned to kill the North Korean soft-toy dictator, Kim Jong-un. In both the cases, representatives of the government were wise enough to be embarrassed. They promised protection

Maharashtra Navnirman Sena workers stage a demonstration against Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Nagpur, October 20(IANS)
Updated on Oct 27, 2016 01:28 PM IST

Why it is good that Bollywood is having a crisis

The film star will never be eliminated, but the time has come for the industry to accept that one way to survive is to invest in cinema that is not inconvenienced by superstars

A symptom of the crisis in Bollywood is the recent announcement of the Walt Disney Company, which had acquired and released the disastrous Hrithink Roshan-starrer “Mohenjo Daro”, that it is quitting Hindi cinema and focusing on its more profitable Hollywood releases(PTI)
Updated on Sep 22, 2016 01:01 AM IST

Why we forgive the rogue neta

HT Image
Published on Sep 12, 2016 08:53 AM IST

Why the Indian voter does not punish the rogue

The voter is ready to overlook the deviations in a politician as the politician appears to be very street-smart, hence useful in the short term.

A convincing reason why Anna Hazare would lose an election is that the typical voter does not perceive him as a street-smart man who can beat the system. Arvind Kejriwal, on the other hand, has successfully portrayed himself as a shrewd man.(PTI File Photo)
Updated on Sep 11, 2016 10:41 PM IST

A madness that pulls us down

HT Image
Published on Aug 29, 2016 11:56 AM IST

Man carrying his dead wife: What this says about India

There are analyses that explain why the man ended up carrying his wife’s corpse for 12 km, but not on how the family could have been in a better place

The man and his daughter had walked about 12 kilometres this way when some journalists spotted him and saw news.(ANI)
Updated on Aug 28, 2016 11:15 PM IST

Thank you very much, but don’t die for us

HT Image
Published on Aug 16, 2016 11:03 AM IST

Do we have moral right to use a person’s suicide to flog our favourite ideas?

There is another danger when suicides become centerpieces of social rebellion. An unspoken understanding comes to be in the society that if people are not killing themselves maybe their suffering is not that great. The overt or covert or sophisticated celebration of suicide diminishes other forms of protest.

Irom Sharmila breaks her fast at a press conference in Imphal.(Saumya Khandelwal/HT Photo)
Updated on Aug 16, 2016 12:27 AM IST

India should not even try to host the Olympics

HT Image
Published on Aug 08, 2016 07:51 AM IST

Why Indians should not let the Olympics make them feel bad

Being considered as a venue for the games is no longer prestigious. Several nations consider it a wasteful expenditure

Fireworks over the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on the opening night of the 2016 Olympic Games on Friday.(Reuters)
Updated on Aug 08, 2016 07:15 AM IST

Shhh. Does this issue bore you?

HT Image
Published on Jul 26, 2016 11:18 AM IST

If Dalits bore you, are you a bad person?

Far worse that the middle class indifference to Dalit issues is the middle class compassion for Dalits which has the qualities of a moral formula

Balubhai, father of one of the Dalit victims who was brutally assaulted by self-styled 'cow protectors' in Una, Gujarat.(Arun Sharma/ HT Photo)
Updated on Jul 26, 2016 07:59 AM IST

One tough question: Whom do you trust?

HT Image
Published on Jul 18, 2016 08:32 AM IST

An unpleasant question: Do Kashmir’s poor hate their elite more than India?

Kashmir’s nationalism was herded by local and Pakistani elites, but it really does not matter now because after a point indoctrination becomes ‘the way things are’

A Kashmiri woman looks out from a window of her home during a curfew, Srinagar, July 12.(AFP)
Updated on Jul 19, 2016 09:58 AM IST

Revenge of the nerds

HT Image
Published on Jul 12, 2016 07:30 AM IST

Nobel laureates’ letter on GM crops punches hole in Greenpeace propaganda

Scientists are finally attempting to take back the reigns of morality from fraudulent and delusional activists whose craft is in manufacturing fear

Activists who have successfully vilified a science are indeed responsible for the malnutrition of millions and the worsening poverty of a majority of world’s farmers, who are small land-holders and would have benefitted from biotechnology.(File)
Updated on Jul 11, 2016 11:04 PM IST

Some indecent questions

HT Image
Published on Jun 27, 2016 08:27 AM IST

Some indecent questions in genetics

In The Gene: An Intimate History, which is an immensely enjoyable and persuasive biography of the human gene for lay people, Siddhartha Mukherjee takes on some of the uncomfortable questions

The reader naturally feels that Siddhartha Mukherjee is about to take a clear stand — favouring genes, perhaps, because his book is called The Gene. But he does not. He ends up suggesting “an armistice between fools”.(Getty Images)
Published on Jun 26, 2016 11:51 PM IST

Udta Punjab: Nothing reforms society as entertainment

The war against drug requires the full force of commercial cinema, which is what Udta Punjab provides, and it does so entirely because it did not set out to reform, it set out to entertain

Updated on Jun 20, 2016 08:41 AM IST

An absolutely deadly freedom

HT Image
Published on Jun 13, 2016 05:43 AM IST

An absolutely deadly freedom

The future of all major Indian cities involve public transportation that would bring together, as passenger trains once did, the many layers of society

Over 146,000 Indians died in road accidents last year, or over 400 a day, according to the latest statistics of the transport ministry. The actual number might be much more(Hindustan Times)
Published on Jun 12, 2016 10:54 PM IST

Fighting Facebook as a form of faith

Religions were invented to suit the interests of the elites. Many of the new moralising religions are in the spectrum of activism

Recently Facebook faced a Quit India movement after it released a version of the Internet, a scaled-down free Internet for the poor called Free Basics.(REUTERS)
Updated on May 16, 2016 01:20 AM IST

How to view the bribe-taking voter in India

The elite are disgusted by election freebies for the poor. But they are greater beneficiaries of subsidies for the poor than the poor themselves.

AIADMK chief and Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa speaks during an election campaign meeting in support of party candidates in Madurai.(PTI File Photo)
Updated on May 08, 2016 09:57 PM IST

Why we Indians should tip more

Tipping can be a reformist political movement; it may also contribute to the goodwill between the republic of the middle class and that of the poor

In restaurants where the idea of tipping is deeply set, Indians give grudgingly and poorly when service charge is not included in the bill(Reuters)
Updated on May 02, 2016 01:07 PM IST

Ambedkar as career advice: Forget the ladder, make your own way

Where millions are trapped in the holes of the elite, digging a tunnel to relinquish the dominant culture of the hole has proved profitable for many

The Dalit Prerna Sthal in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.(Burhaan Kinu/HT File Photo)
Updated on Apr 14, 2017 01:25 PM IST
SHARE
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • ...
Story Saved
Live Score
Saved Articles
Following
My Reads
Sign out
New Delhi 0C
Sunday, November 03, 2024
Start 14 Days Free Trial Subscribe Now
Follow Us On
// // //