YOGINDER K. ALAGH | CHARAWAK<br> In India the new air for some,is that you can break the law and get away with it.

RAJA-MANDALA/C. Raja Mohan<br> If the CPM does well and forges a Third Front government,its General Secretary Prakash Karat would be hailed as a hero.

Coomi Kapoor | Blog Bytes<br> Until now,political parties generally ignored the young and first-time voter. In the upcoming Parliamentary elections,the focus is on garnering the youth vote.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta | Swaraj Aur Samvidhan<br> It is the peculiar dignity of our democracy that anyone can aspire to be Prime Minister. You can be in your thirties or in your eighties.

Sandeep Dwivedi<br> Though VVS Laxman hasn’t yet taken the field against the Kiwis,he is expected to be a big draw during the upcoming Test series.

C. Raja Mohan<BR /> As India celebrates the third successful anti-missile test conducted off the Orissa coast on Friday,New Delhi might continue to have trouble managing the politics of missile defence at home and abroad.

Bibek Debroy<br> We think of a good idea,mess up its implementation and then scrap the idea. The HRD Ministry's website has a list of 123 deemed universities.

Coomi Kapoor | Blog Bytes<br> 2009 could be a reprise of 1996,the year when a dark horse emerged as Prime Minister. With neither the UPA nor the NDA expected to manage a majority on their own,the balance of power will rest with Third Front.

Harneet Singh | Fully Filmi<br>Whoever said you can't get enough of a good thing probably didn't have his meals disrupted each and every time just because the word Slumdog was being mentioned.

Bibek Debroy<br> Every non-government economist is certain to say - we told you so. The CSO’s advance estimate of real GDP growth for 2008-09 was 7.1%.

Sandeep Dwivedi<br> Trust the captain of India’s Twenty20 World Cup-winning team,MS Dhoni,to make some pertinent points about the game’s shortest version.

Bonnie Honig<br /> The film,Slumdog Millionaire,has been received as a traditional love story (boy meets girls,boy loses girl,boy gets girl) set in a new setting. But the film actually offers a profound meditation on the contradictions of democracy and the ideological faces of global capital.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta<br> There was something distinctly odd and diminishing about the discourse that surrounded Slumdog Millionaire's extraordinary success at Oscars.

Yoginder K Alagh | Charawak<br> Pranab Mukherji was delightful in the extra work of spinning out a vote-on-account and delivering home truths later.

Coomi Kapoor | Blog Bytes<br> If an individual has the freedom to dress as he or she pleases,surely the host has the right to pick and chose whom he wants to permit within his premises?

Harneet Singh<BR /> First a confession: I'm a Rang De Basanti fanatic. Love everything about it,even (and especially) the end. So you can imagine my excitement to watch what Rakeysh Mehra had dreamt up next.

C. Raja Mohan<BR /> As the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Beijing Friday on the last leg of her Asian tour,Tibet has begun to acquire an unexpected profile in the Obama Administration's engagement with China.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta | Swaraj Aur Samvidhan<br> Pakistan's agreement with the Taliban in the Swat region may turn out to be a catastrophically momentous event in South Asia.

Shreya Chakravertty<br> The WADA and the ITF have finally come down hard on doping and use of dungs in the game and even though players might describe the rules as 'draconian',they are the need of the hour.

Bharat Sundaresan<br> They hail from completely different backgrounds,but Paul Ronald Reiffel and Handunettige Deepthi Priyantha Kumar Dharmasena shared quite a few similarities during their international careers.

Coomi Kapoor | Blog Bytes<br> A re-union in Lonavala last week with school friends,some of whom I had not met for 45 years,brought back memories of my school days.

Bibek Debroy<br> One of the problems with budget figures is one never directly obtains government projections about GDP.

Harneet Singh | Fully Filmi<br> Shah Rukh Khan is perplexed. His lawyers are in a tizzy. The entire Red Chillies office is scurrying around. By now you know the story: The Salon and Beauty Parlours' Association found the word 'barber' objectionable in the title ‘Billu Barber’ and threatened to get a stay on the film's release.

C Raja Mohan | Raja-Mandala<br> Even the most sceptical of Indian analysts will have to concede that Pakistan has taken an important step forward Thursday in acknowledging that at least part of the planning for the Mumbai outrage took place in Pakistan.

Pratap Bhanu Mehta<br> Our freedoms are under threat again. The editor of the Statesman was arrested for reproducing an article by Jonathan Hari,"Why Should I Respect These Oppressive Religions?"