With Obama so clearly ahead in all the polls, following the race has lost a little of the adrenalin. Ok - I admit it.I am a complete sucker for closely-fought races. Nobody watches India beating Hong Kong at the Asia Cup, or for that matter Brazil whooping India in the soccer play-offs, it's no fun to speculate on a blue-chip share (present crisis notwithstanding), and it's certainly unexciting to cover an election with only one candidate likely to win. Which is why the US Presidential elections are already beginning to pale a bit - with Obama so clearly ahead in all the polls, following the race has lost a little of the adrenalin. I mean the man seems to be leading in every conceivable voting group I can find - besides the double-digit leads he has in most states nationwide amongst generic average-Americans, there're the African Americans, the Hispanic Americans, the Asian Americans (McCain leads only amongst Vietnamese Americans), and of...

Eventually it was all three speeches that Musharraf decided to read out. For the week preceding his address to the Nation- he must have been considering his options- just as drawing rooms across Pakistan were, just as journalists like us who were gathering in Islamabad were. PTV, with a flourish unknown to state television anywhere had a permanent popup box flashing on its screen- Impeachment or Resignation? it said. Impeachment or Resignation? Would he quit without a fight, or stand and face parliament? Or, as we had watched him do since the February 18th election, simply pretend nothing had happened, that he was going to continue as Pakistan's legally-elected President until his term expired in 2012, and extend our waiting game by another week, another month. But nobody I knew, nobody I met who knew him thought he could actually stay. So, when would he go? I believe, not even Musharraf knew until just before it happened. As I touched...

There are hardly any parallels to what happened in Ahmedabad- in terms of terror attacks, IEDs and suicide bombings, never has a hospital been targeted in the cruel and completely inhuman manner the Civil hospital in Shahibaug and the LG Hospital in Maninagar were. Hospitals are always the centre of action after any attack- it's perhaps the first time they have become the scene of the attack itself. ( I say perhaps, because there have been a few incidents of bombs near hospitals like the one near the Mallya hospital in Bangalore a day earlier, and others in Baghdad also near hospitals). If terror is a war, then what kind of war is this - that tries to kill the wounded, to maim those already suffering, and to destroy the healers? Agreed, we are all pawns and possible targets of these groups, but are there no exceptions? On July 7, Kabul saw another unwritten boundary crossed-when two diplomats were among...

Forget the numbers, never have the letters meant so much to Manmohan Singh, his party, and government. I mean letters of the alphabet, not letters of support- but I guess that too, as its really down to the MNF, and the NPF, not to mention the BPN, the NLP, and the SDF to save the government- especially if the AIMIM and the MLKSC decide to vote against it. Each of those letter groupings represent one or more of a commodity more precious than crude right now, a parliament seat, and surprisingly our PhD-PM seems to have been a little tardy in Alphabet-soup class. The exam is nearly here, and he and Mrs. Gandhi must be wishing they had studied a little harder, a little earlier. They could have asked anyone who has appeared for the Indian Cramming Studies Exercise, and they'd tell you, the answer is a Kunji- so here's the rapidex version of what they needed to know about the men they're...