Krishna Prasad is best known as one of the two reporters who exposed the alleged match-fixing scandal in Indian cricket in Outlook magazine. He has several exposes to his credit, most notably on the Indian nuclear programme. Krishna has worked at The Times of India, Mid-Day, The Sunday Observer and Outlook.

Spread some Christmas cheer
'Those who want to indulge in the Christmas spirit of giving need look no further than the local newspaper,' says Krishna Prasad.

Thank you, Raveena
'Why is there no Raveena Tandon on Raisina Hill to stand up and say: "If it weren't for condoms, half (or quarter or a tenth) of Indian politicians would have AIDS?"

It's a repeat of the same, old story
'Be it the earthquake in Latur, or the supercyclone in Orissa, or the drought in Rajasthan, or the starvation deaths in Orissa, there is a common strand running through. And it is one of neglect of and nonchalance towards the most valuable commodity known to humankind: Life.'

Vox Populi: The Real Thing
'This is the world's first column with a built-in safety-shield, which protects writer and reader. You can't blame the columnist if you don't like it! And you don't have to agree with him!'

Two big, brave predictions
I'm willing to bet with the dons of the underworld that Sub-Junior Roshan is not going to replace the sultan of srkworld Not in this, the real first year of the real new millennium. Not next year. Never.'

Why must our heroes be so pure that even Gandhi would find it tough to survive scrutiny?
'Surely, there is a chance Mr Rao may walk out innocent? But no, such niceties are lost on our two-bit politicians looking for a spot of reflected publicity.'

How far our politicians have come!
'The mukhauta has fallen off two leading protagonists of the Hindu undivided parivar -- one a bachelor by choice, the other a spinster by compulsion -- revealing not bitter sourpusses behind them, but real human beings with real feelings. Happy Diwali.'

•Black sheep in white coats
'Whatever happens to the third most respected professionals in this country the moment they have to deal with the Scum of The Universe?'

•Storm after dotcom
'If a transnational corporation or a government or a politician or a bureaucrat or a businessman or a film star or -- god forbid -- a cricketer feels aggrieved by a news item, or a discussion in a chatroom, all he has to do to hit back is strike at the ISP.'

•The Coca-Colanisation of our polity
'In their quest to be all things to all people our political parties are in danger of becoming nothing to nobody.'

•Jurassic Bagh
'In last year's general election, nearly 65 per cent of the electorate was between 18 and 35 years old. Yet, just how many ministers in Mr Vajpayee's jumbo team are from that age group? One? Two? Three? Answer: None. How can such an old leadership mirror the aspirations of a young democracy?'

•Who's afraid of the foreign print media?
'Why do the lions of the saffron brotherhood who so bravely demonstrate their manhood to flop film-makers from Canada, piddle in their pantaloons when it comes to taking on the 'paper tigers' of India?'

•Maran's largesse
'On the one hand, the government is a votary of reforms and liberalisation and WTO and all that jazz that makes multinationals see dollar-signs at every milestone in India. And, on the other, it is opposed to one of the logical (and most beneficial) consequences of the same reforms, liberalisation and WTO. Why? Whose cause is the government trying to espouse? Are the people of India uppermost in the minds of the mandarins of Mr Murasoli Maran's ministry?'

•Them and Us
'As the response to the Rubaiya Sayeed kidnapping and to this hijacking proves, there's one rule for us mere mortals, and one rule for them.'

•Editor the Great
'She walked into the hotel lounge at the appointed hour. Editor The Great was in fine form. "You're looking beautiful," he said. "Thanks," she said, hoping the nightmare would pass.' Krishna Prasad on a young correspondent and a great editor.

•Dump the cliches, Bombay Boys!
'On the eve of the Barood series, 40 cliches you will hear from Gavaskar, Shastri, Manjrekar, Bhogle, or any Indian who did some extraordinary deed in his previous innings...' Krishna Prasad on Indian commentators.

•The strange case of Shantaram Ganiga
'In it lies a lesson for all our pseudo-secularists: that communal, linguistic, or international harmony is not achieved to the clink of champagne glasses in drawing rooms, or through hot words in seminars, but on the ground. And it happens without exhortation but voluntarily.'

•Northeasterners are up against a mammoth obstacle -- the Indian Standard Time
'Had Punjab been in the northeast and had able-bodied Surds been made to wait for an hour for the rest of India to wake up for them to unfurl the green revolution, they would have chewed the you-know-what of our politicians till they had a different time zone.'

•Treason of the Intellectuals
"In India an intellectual cannot but be a prostitute. This highly stratified Hindu society arranged on an ascending order of reverence and descending degree of contempt is a fertile breeding ground for such prostitutes." Krishna Prasad on V T Rajasekhar's critique of Indian intellectuals.

•'When (and why) did Christians replace Muslims as the pet-hate of the saffron brotherhood?'
'In the eyes of the world, "secular" India today perhaps seems only slightly different from Islamic Pakistan -- in its abrasive and aggressive intolerance of other religions--and that's a real bad state to be in for the land of Gandhi, Buddha and Teresa.'

•Why have Ananth Kumar and Mahajan hit terra firma with a thud?
'Much as secular sourpusses would like to delight in their plight, it is painfully obvious that, while subtlety is not their strongpoint, neither the party nor the Parivar is daft to spike its stars of the future in so obvious a manner as to set tongues wagging.'

•After Vajpayee who?
'It boggles the mind to imagine what would happen to the NDA if a hardline leader incapable of saying no to "Nagpur" were to bring back the contentious issues on the table, and scare away the allies. And it boggles the mind even more to imagine what will happen to the BJP itself. In other words, can an L K Advani inspire the same level of confidence in the allies and voters? Or a Murli Manohar Joshi? Or a Jaswant Singh?'

•It's a good thing we will be stuck with a kindler, gentler Vajpayee
'Someone who draws his support not from the Rajju Bhaiyyas of the world but from a forward-looking technocrat like Chandrababu Naidu and a federalist like M Karunanidhi.'

•Why don't we privatise the government?
'Since we are already into a knowledge-based economy, how about making knowledge the prerequisite? How about Julio Ribeiro/K P S Gill as Union home minister? N R Narayana Murthy/Azim Premji for information technology? Rahul Bajaj/Karsanbhai Patel for industry? Sam Pitroda for telecommunications?'

•Why have we gotten so insular?
'Lament at the passing away of a generation of politicians with the voice, vision and reach that went far beyond our borders. Lament at our State-sponsored, abnormal and paranoid fixation with all things Pakistani that has blinded us to the rest of the world, including the Third World which we used to head so long ago.'

•No Exit
'How the illiterate will read and interpret polls and ads if they are illiterate is something only Dr Gill knows. As for the 'poor', have we all been wrong in our belief that they're 'en masse' bought over by cash, booze and other sugar candies that politicians manage to smuggle upto them in spite of the model code?'

•Nobody is talking of the issues that matter
'The BJP ads listed Pokhran, forex reserves, low inflation... The Congress spoke of the foul-ups in Kargil and promised stability. What does any of it have to do with you and me? And to millions of others whose main concerns are food, water, land, jobs, health, housing, forests, transport?'

•Where's the gift of the gab?
'The obvious reason why we are running out of good speakers is because we've stopped making good statesmen; people who can think beyond party and poll, and place nation before self.'

•How in hell has Sonia been allowed to get away without giving a single interview to the Press?
Sonia would have been fully entitled to her silence if she were just a private individual. But the moment she stepped into the political pulpit she lost that right voluntarily.'

•Fixed tenure politics
'The prospect of having to face the electorate again is just about the only thing that keeps politicians on their toes. That we should be talking about "fixed tenures" at a time when we should be discussing legislation to "call back" our representatives shows how the BJP is taking us for a ride.'

• Smoke signals
The BCCI and its deals. An analysis.

•Does India need a new National Anthem?
'Do we need a new national anthem, or do we need a zippier Jana Gana Mana that catches the fancy of generation next?'

•Deja view
A hard-nosed look at the 'Sachin for captain' drama.

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