Anthony Bourdain thought vada-pao was so good that all other Indian food could be dismissed. He was not wrong, says Aakar Patel.

'What does our conservatism seek to conserve?' 'Of course its values, which are akin to religion and accepted unquestioningly.' 'Such things as respect for elders, studying 'hard', career choices being determined or influenced by parents, the idea of arranged marriage, the marking of ritual and ceremony,' explains Aakar Patel.

'What is required is to make Pakistan less war-like and more modest in its ambitions. To normalise with India and to reduce the State's fondness for religion.' 'It is pragmatism and not charisma that it required and it is by being boring and not heroic that this can be achieved.' 'This is the moment of realisation which brings the Pakistani leader into conflict with the army.' 'Imran Khan will learn the lesson in time,' says Aakar Patel.

'It is unclear whether there will again be such a confrontational moment in our politics before we all go to vote in 2019,' says Aakar Patel.

'Except for the Akali Dal and Shiv Sena, the BJP has not found any permanent friends.' 'This is because most parties are genuinely concerned about what Hindutva politics does to Indian society,' argues Aakar Patel.

'If lynchings are happening frequently in India, it is the responsibility of those who lead the country to try and end them, not promote them,' says Aakar Patel.

'We should not use and confuse the word Right to define Hindutva.' 'Doing so blurs the issue because it gives the BJP attributes that it does not have and does not even want,' says Aakar Patel.

'Many of us hope that India will soon play well enough to be part of truly global sporting tournaments like the football World Cup and the Olympics,' says Aakar Patel.

Aakar Patel tell us why we must travel with open eyes and discover ourselves.

'The bullet train is not modernity itself. It is the product of modernity.' 'It is this modernity that we would be fortunate to be able to import from Japan.' 'It occurs to me that we seem to believe that by acquiring the toys we will become a modern nation,' says Aakar Patel.

'It will be fascinating to see how Modi, for the first time in his political life without a majority, is able to manage the ambitions and the conflicts,' says Aakar Patel.

'What happens in case the party joins a post-poll alliance with another party whose ideology the legislator is opposed to?' 'Should s/he let down her/his voters merely because her/his party leadership has taken a decision in that direction?' asks Aakar Patel.

'For the Congress, it has become necessary to make alliances, but this is not easy to deliver at the local level,' says Aakar Patel.

Elizabeth Hurley, one of the great beauties of our time, said there was only one way to lose weight, and it was 'to go to bed hungry', says Aakar Patel.

'1998-1999 was the only year in the last quarter century that India had net-negative foreign investment.' 'Foreign money ran away from India that year because capital is a coward and does not like uncertainty of the sort produced by such casual treatment of a destructive technology,' says Aakar Patel.

'Till we are able to understand this reality of what is happening to our fellow citizens today in 2018, it would be hypocrisy to continue to teach in our textbooks about the great atrocity of 1919,' argues Aakar Patel.

'Some have speculated that it has to do with Doklam and the 2019 elections.' 'That Modi asked Xi not to embarrass him by sending the Chinese army into Bhutan again, this time rolling over our resistance,' says Aakar Patel.

'My boss was a woman. Not any woman, she was a demanding, rude and foul-mouthed creature whom I liked immediately,' says Aakar Patel.

'The death penalty exists in India for murderers. Is it a deterrent and does it stop murders?'

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