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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Fractured Crown

Between Siddaramaiah’s grip on power and Shivakumar’s restless ambition, the Karnataka Congress is trapped in a succession spiral. Karnataka Karnataka today has two chief ministers - one by office, the other by expectation. The power tussle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, has slipped so completely into the open that the Congress’s ritual denials sound like political farce. A whispered ‘understanding’ after the 2023 victory that each would get the CM’s post after...

Fractured Crown

Between Siddaramaiah’s grip on power and Shivakumar’s restless ambition, the Karnataka Congress is trapped in a succession spiral. Karnataka Karnataka today has two chief ministers - one by office, the other by expectation. The power tussle between Siddaramaiah and his deputy, D.K. Shivakumar, has slipped so completely into the open that the Congress’s ritual denials sound like political farce. A whispered ‘understanding’ after the 2023 victory that each would get the CM’s post after two-and-a-half years has hardened into a public confrontation between a chief minister determined to finish five years and a deputy increasingly unwilling to wait. The recent breakfast meeting between the two men at Siddaramaiah’s residence was presented as a truce where the ‘high command’ was invoked as the final arbiter. “There are no differences between us,” Siddaramaiah insisted, twice for emphasis. Few were convinced and soon, Shivakumar was again hinting darkly at change. For weeks, Shivakumar’s loyalists have been holding meetings, mobilising legislators and making pilgrimages to Delhi to get the Congress high command to honour its promise. They insist that the Congress leadership agreed to a rotational chief ministership in 2023 and that November 2025 was always meant to mark Shivakumar’s ascent. The high command, for its part, has perfected the art of strategic vagueness by neither confirming nor denying the pact. This suggests that the Congress does not merely hesitate to act against Siddaramaiah, but increasingly lacks the capacity to do so. From the outset of his second innings, Siddaramaiah has given no signal of easing aside. As he approaches January 2026, poised to overtake D. Devaraj Urs as Karnataka’s longest-serving chief minister, the symbolism is unmistakable. The mantle of social justice politics that Urs once embodied now firmly sits on Siddaramaiah’s shoulders. And it is this social coalition that shields him. His fortress is AHINDA - minorities, backward classes and Dalits. Leaked figures from the unreleased caste census suggest that these groups together approach or exceed two-thirds of the state’s population. Lingayats and Vokkaligas, once electorally dominant, are rendered numerical minorities in this arithmetic. Siddaramaiah governs not merely as a Congress leader, but as the putative custodian of Karnataka’s demographic majority. That claim is reinforced through policy. Minority scholarships have been revived, contractor quotas restored, residential schools expanded. More than Rs. 42,000 crore has been earmarked for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Kurubas, his own community, have been pitched for Scheduled Tribe status, with careful assurances that their elevation will not disadvantage others. DK Shivakumar brings organisational muscle, financial clout and control over the Vokkaliga heartland. In electoral campaigns, these are formidable assets. But in a confrontation with a leader who embodies a 60–70 percent social coalition, they are blunt instruments. The Congress high command understands this equation, even if it publicly pretends otherwise. It also remembers, uneasily, what Siddaramaiah did the last time his authority was constrained. In 2020, when the Congress–JD(S) coalition collapsed after 16 MLAs defected to Mumbai,13 of them hailed from Siddaramaiah’s camp. At the time, he held the post of coordination committee chairman. Instead, he emerged as the principal beneficiary of collapse, returning as Leader of the Opposition with a tighter grip on the party. If the Congress high command could not punish him then, it is doubtful it can coerce him now. Shivakumar’s predicament is thus more tragic than tactical. He is not battling a rival alone, but an entire political structure built to outlast him. The promised coronation looks increasingly like a mirage drifting just ahead of a man condemned to keep walking. For the Congress, the cost of this paralysis is already visible. A government elected on guarantees and governance is consumed by succession. The party’s authority is dissolving while its factions harden. The Congress returned to power in Karnataka after years in the wilderness, only to re-enact the same leadership dysfunction that has crippled it elsewhere. Regardless of whether Siddaramaiah survives this storm, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Congress cannot survive the slow corrosion of its command in one of the few states it holds today.

Aviation Besieged

Updated: Oct 25, 2024

Aviation Besieged

A wave of hoax bomb threats has plunged India’s aviation industry into chaos, forcing flight diversions, delays, and heightened security measures. The surge has disrupted nearly 100 flights over the past week alone, leaving passengers stranded, airports on high alert, and airlines scrambling to mitigate financial losses. Last week’s chilling incident, in which a Mumbai-Chicago Air India flight was diverted to the icy isolation of Iqaluit, a remote city in Canada, starkly captured the reality of these disruptions.


Passengers were stranded for over 18 hours in freezing conditions before being ferried to their destination by a Canadian Air Force plane. While the threat turned out to be false, the financial and logistical damage was significant. With other similar hoaxes targeting Indian airlines, the aviation sector now faces a mounting crisis that is taking a heavy toll on operational efficiency and passenger confidence. The deluge of threats is unprecedented. In just one week, over 90 bomb threats were reported, forcing multiple flights to divert, cancel, or return to their point of origin. These threats peaked even as Indian airlines carried a record-breaking 484,263 passengers on 14 October. The process of dealing with these threats, which includes deploying fighter jets to escort planes and conducting exhaustive searches of aircraft, cargo, and luggage, often stretches into hours, leaving both passengers and airlines grappling with long delays.


The financial fallout is significant. Airlines, already grappling with rising fuel costs, are forced to reroute planes, dump fuel, and accommodate stranded passengers. Air India alone reportedly lost over Rs. 30 million in one incident, including the cost of fuel, grounding of the aircraft, and arranging alternative transportation. This burden, combined with post-pandemic recovery challenges, adds another layer of pressure to an industry still struggling to regain its footing.


Hoax bomb threats are not new to the aviation industry, but the current spike in India is particularly troubling. Between 2014 and 2017, there were 120 recorded bomb hoaxes at Indian airports, with Delhi and Mumbai bearing the brunt. However, the recent scale and frequency of these incidents are unprecedented, and the cost of inaction is becoming unsustainable. The recurring nature of these threats raises serious concerns about the robustness of India’s aviation security framework.


The surge in hoaxes has been largely facilitated by anonymous social media accounts, complicating efforts to identify and prosecute perpetrators. Indian authorities have enlisted the help of social media platforms like X to trace the origin of the threats, but their efforts have been hampered by the use of VPNs and dark web networks. So far, investigations have made little progress, save for the arrest of a minor who issued threats in a petty personal vendetta. The question remains: are these isolated incidents, or is there a larger, coordinated effort at play? Failure to act swiftly could erode confidence in India’s aviation sector, which, with over 3,000 daily flights and 150 operational airports, is a crucial driver of economic growth.

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