Akhilesh Sinha

The Congress’s leadership drama in Karnataka is the latest reminder of how decisively India’s politics is shaped by party high commands rather than by voters. India prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy. Yet within its political parties, power increasingly flows upwards. It is this ‘high command’ culture that is increasingly vexing Indian democracy. Nowhere was this more evident in Karnataka, where the ongoing power tussle between the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy...

Part 3 : The concluding chapter of our three-part series traces the Indian Railway’s astonishing acceleration into a modern, digital and greener future. Indian Railways has always been more than a transport utility. It has been a force that moulded markets, stitched together societies and sustained the world’s largest democracy through war, famine, migration and modernisation. If the first century of its existence chronicled the improbable birth of an iron network under colonial rule, and the...

Part 2: of our three-part series on the making of Indian Railways traces the journey from national trauma to technological ambition. A packed refugee train during Partition of Punjab, 1947. The Chittaranjan Locomotive Works was the precursor to today’s ‘Make in India’ initiative. Few institutions in the Republic have absorbed India’s shocks and ambitions with the stoicism of its railways. Born of an unlikely colonial wager, the Indian Railways’ modern story is one of reinvention across the...