Can we ask the judges a simple question: You write judgments all the time to protect the judiciary from others. Will you write one on how to save the judiciary from the judges, too, asks Shekhar Gupta.

Modi and Shah can't afford to lose any of the 24 per cent Dalit vote of 2014, says Shekhar Gupta.

'The Left is dying, but its economic ideology rules, unchallenged.' 'Modi is its newest standard-bearer.' 'Even in today's bitterly polarised politics, if there is one thing on which not just the BJP and Congress, but all other parties agree, it is that socialist economics is the only way to survive,' says Shekhar Gupta.

'The Modi government needs some big private sector trophies to affirm its anti-corruption credentials before the polls.' 'So on whose neck will the sword fall next?' 'To that extent, the outing of the ICICI Bank-Videocon story is cathartic,' says Shekhar Gupta.

'When it comes to national politics, the Modi-Shah BJP has successfully redefined secularism.' 'If a party like the Congress has to have a future, it has to move closer to the secular centre from the far Left where its Left infatuation during the UPA years dragged it,' argues Shekhar Gupta.

'You can never say never in politics.' 'We may still see the return of AAP, but hopefully not of the same abusive politics again,' says Shekhar Gupta.

'All governments try owning the message, but the Modi-Shah BJP has developed it into a fine art.'

'Imagine a situation where an upright officer refuses to carry out a chief minister's or a central minister's orders that he considers wrong.' 'Can he be summarily thrashed at a meeting at your residence, or in his own office?' 'If AAP legitimises political violence, there are many, many, tougher political leaders elsewhere to draw the wrong lessons,' warns Shekhar Gupta.

'Modi wants to reverse everything Nehru did, but is shy of touching his daughter's most unwise policies.' 'There is no example of this more stark than bank nationalisation,' says Shekhar Gupta.

'The middle class you can hurt anytime. For revenues, politics, pleasure, anything,' notes Shekhar Gupta.

If the Congress can simply go from 110 million to 130 million votes, it will yield a very different kind of NDA.

'Jignesh Mevani has many strengths: Youth, articulation, fearlessness, proficiency with social media, political and ideological flexibility.' 'Also focus, as in targeting the BJP as the one and only enemy for now and using that justification to align with the rest,' says Shekhar Gupta.

Nationalism, Hindutva, and war on corruption, not growth, will define Modi's politics until 2019.

'The world wants India to succeed. It also worries now that India over-promises and under-delivers,' says Shekhar Gupta.

'N Ram and I met on the lawns of Mani Shankar Aiyar's bungalow.' 'I pulled out a rolled printout from my jacket and handed it to him.' 'In the cut-throat world of journalism, this was like high treason.' 'But letting a story be killed because you can't publish it is a bigger crime than passing it to the competition,' recalls Shekhar Gupta.

Budget 2018 bears imprints of a government unsure of second term with clear majority, says Shekhar Gupta.

'Somebody will need to blow the whistle, call the play to a halt, and convince all players that they belong on the same side of the goal,' says Shekhar Gupta.

Sukh Ram and Raja were charged with corruption during their tenure as telecom ministers. Sukh Ram was convicted while Raja has been acquitted. One had cash found under his bed; in the case of the other the trial judge mockingly asks: Where is the money? And if there's no money, where is the corruption? So, pronounced innocent. Sukh Ram is a Brahmin. 'Maybe he strayed just that one time, people like that aren't usually corrupt.' And Raja is a Dalit. 'Can you expect any better?' What race is in some places, caste is in India, says Shekhar Gupta.

'So far the youth were Modi's strength.' 'It now seems under pressure, and for good reason: Crisis in education, jobs, slowdown in manufacturing, and thereby trading,' points out Shekhar Gupta.

Modi-Shah can complain about the Congress playing caste politics but the fact is that in Gujarat it is threatening to return to the old normal. Caste again threatens to divide what Hindutva has kept united for 25 years, says Shekhar Gupta.