Kanishk Tharoor

Kanishk Tharoor is associate editor at openDemocracy. His writings on politics and culture have also been published in the Guardian, The Independent, The National, The Hindu, The Times of India, The Telegraph (Calcutta), the Virginia Quarterly Review, Foreign Policy and YaleGlobal Online. His appearances on radio and TV include BBC's Today programme, BBC News, BBC Radio Scotland and the Colbert Report. He is a published and award-winning author of short fiction. He studied at Yale, where he graduated magna cum laude with BAs in History and Literature.

Email him at kanishk [dot] tharoor [at] opendemocracy [dot] net.

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Palin is not the "Republican Obama"

Amidst the mountain of praise heaped on Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican National Convention yesterday, one assessment stuck out for me. According to NBC's political

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 4 Sep 2008

Does the Caribbean exist?

As Jim Gabour seemed certain of all along, Hurricane Gustav spared New Orleans a return to the horrors and devastation of Katrina three years ago. Though eight people across the

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 2 Sep 2008

Palin's challenge to Obama

John McCain had a hard act to follow after the thunder of the Democratic National Convention. In the Rockies, Obama scaled the heights of political spectacle, delivering one of the

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 1 Sep 2008

President "Ishmael"

Barack Obama's nomination as the official candidate of the Democratic Party offers many firsts, not least that he is the first African American to come so close to

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 29 Aug 2008

Proud to be a New Yorker

The Obama campaign is trying to reinforce its unconventional candidacy by staging an unconventional convention. Yesterday, Obama received a massive boost from Hillary Clinton. The ritual centre-piece of all party

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 28 Aug 2008

Bill begins to redeem himself

Bill Clinton's much anticipated speech yesterday at the Democratic National Convention went far in banishing the memory of his dismal behaviour during the primary contest. For all his

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 28 Aug 2008

Pakistan's military myth

What has Pervez Musharraf bequeathed Pakistan? The "president-general" steps down from power at a time of great political and violent unrest, with the civilian government falling to pieces

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 28 Aug 2008

Russia and the west: confusing bark for bite

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Georgia, the spectre of the Kremlin looming maliciously over world affairs once again stalks the magazines and broadsheets of Europe and North

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 22 Aug 2008

The president steps down

Leaders around the world have greeted the resignation of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf as a positive step forward for a country still in the throes of instability. Irfan Husain assesses

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 21 Aug 2008

India: all aboard?

In the wake of India's 61st birthday, the country's problems remain immense and its dreams of superpower-dom all the more ungainly.

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 20 Aug 2008

Schröder slams McCain on Georgia

The conventional wisdom has it that this month's eruption of violence between Russia and Georgia played squarely into the hands of John McCain. With pundits and hacks fulminating

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 19 Aug 2008

Martin Luther King in Berlin: Marienkirche or the Brandenburg Gate?

The inevitable echoes of John F Kennedy reverberated around Barack Obama's speech before the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin last month. Jane Dailey, a professor of American history at

By Kanishk Tharoor

/ 4 Aug 2008