Contact author

About L K Sharma

L K Sharma has followed no profession other than journalism for more than four decades, covering criminals and prime ministers. Was the European Correspondent of The Times of India based in London for a decade. Reported for five years from Washington as the Foreign Editor of the Deccan Herald. Edited three volumes on innovations in India. He has completed a work of creative nonfiction on V. S. Naipaul.

Articles by L K Sharma

This week’s front page editor

Michael Edwards is editor of Transformation.

European integration

Six countries. Six different paths to EU integration.

No to TTIP

The secretive EU-US trade deal explained

The Commonwealth gets extra attention

L K Sharma 16 April 2018

Some 5,000 participants from government, business and civil society have arrived for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). The central theme of the deliberations is ‘Towards a Common Future’.

Cut-throat competition distorts democracy in India

L K Sharma 6 April 2018

So, what is the right measure of passion in politics that is good for the health of democracy? There has to be a right balance.

Remotely-controlled weapons hit democracy: killing from a distance

L K Sharma 24 March 2018

In the new information order, manipulated voters have come to outnumber threatened voters and bribed voters. The larger picture.

Statues are not safe in India

L K Sharma 10 March 2018

One cynic says that after every election, the new Government can spend its first year in uninstalling the statutes erected by the previous regime.

When faith fills ballot boxes

L K Sharma 12 November 2017

Ironically, the message of scientific temper, modernity, secularism resonated more in India when the rate of literacy was low. Distinctions between science and mythology and mythology and history keep eroding.

Of sacred cows and profane men

L K Sharma 7 June 2017

The cow has highlighted religious, regional, social and cultural differences. Some humans have been killed in the name of the cow.

Reimagining India in Britain

L K Sharma 19 May 2017

The Great India Show covers even science in India. It has been blessed by the two governments. Britain is out on a mission to rediscover India.

Conversion of a Hindu priest in India

L K Sharma 26 March 2017

If religious passions are inflamed, it is election time. This is what every regular visitor to India has come to know.

Modi marches on amid hope and fear

L K Sharma 20 March 2017

Modi can get away with anything now. His public adores muscular Hinduism, majoritarianism, politicised nationalism and a neo-liberal development model which gives subsidized big corporates big incentives.

Trump & Modi hover over Jaipur Literature Festival

L K Sharma 29 January 2017

Since both Trump and Modi excite hearts rather than minds, they ought to be invited to the next Jaipur Literature Festival.

Another arrested revolution in the East

L K Sharma 13 December 2016

Donald Trump ought to thank Modi for showing the way to electoral success. More and more leaders are convinced that perpetual confrontation pays in politics.

A flashpoint in South Asia?

L K Sharma 30 August 2016

“You question India’s territorial integrity, I will question Pakistan’s. You interfere in our internal affairs, we will interfere in yours.”

Trump diminishes democracy

L K Sharma 8 May 2016

How the Americans vote in their presidential election should be only their business. But it cannot be so.

India falters in battle of ideas with Pakistan

L K Sharma 8 March 2016

The religious extremists in Pakistan love any outbreak of sectarian violence in India because that makes their task easier.

Nationalism fever strikes India

L K Sharma 26 February 2016

The debate in India about 'nationalism' or 'anti-nationalism' is essentially between the pro & anti-Modi forces. But the issues come and go...

The hugging Prime Minister fails Zuckerberg

L K Sharma 19 February 2016

India, according to the Facebook Director, would have been better off had it remained under British rule. Coming from an American, it was a bit ironical.

Long live Empire!

L K Sharma 13 February 2016

Indians don’t care whether the statue of Queen Victoria stays put or is consigned to a junkyard. Many agree with Ferguson that the British Empire had some plus points.

Writers get bouquets, not brickbats

L K Sharma 2 February 2016

The business model of the Jaipur Literature Festival will be studied as a case study, the two writer-directors having successfully yoked together the rival Hindu Goddesses of wealth and wisdom.

India: roller-coastering democracy

L K Sharma 4 December 2015

The nation is sharply divided between those protesting against growing intolerance and those attacking them for seeing what does not exist and asking them to migrate to Pakistan.

Modi at Wembley – the empire strikes back

L K Sharma 19 November 2015

Modi and Cameron put on a great show, but to what end?

How not to counter Modimania

L K Sharma 12 November 2015

It has been India’s strength not to think in black-and-white terms. “If you are not with us, you are against us” is not what is normally heard in India.

Purse is mightier than the pen

L K Sharma 12 November 2015

As India’s culture wars move into the economic domain, the British Prime Minister may raise the topics of pluralism and tolerance during Narendra Modi’s UK visit.

A vote against religious hate

L K Sharma 9 November 2015

No agency records the levels of mental pollution and no scientific instrument records the intolerance levels in a society, but even a casual visitor to India would notice.

Will the real Modi stand up?

L K Sharma 20 February 2015

Lord Shiva is one God who assimilates in his person all contradictions. Modi did the same!

Proper democracy triumphs in Delhi

L K Sharma 11 February 2015

The Aam Admi Party won as many as 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi State legislature. Modi’s BJP managed to get just three of its candidates elected. Congress failed to win a single seat.

A mellower Naipaul disappoints fans

L K Sharma 2 February 2015

All was forgotten. All was forgiven at this year's Jaipur Literary Festival. The short fuse replaced by a wire thick enough not to burn.

A lit-fest expresses India’s genes

L K Sharma 30 January 2015

The five-day festival passed off “peacefully”, without the violent assertion of the right to be offended.

Change the people

L K Sharma 20 January 2015

In a message to the tax evaders, a frightening voice says: “We know it all! Every single transaction of yours! You can hide nothing!” Meanwhile, Indians are getting more materialistic…

The subaltern can speak

L K Sharma 13 February 2014

The organizers of the 2014 festival felt - if the Hindiwallahs and the Rajasthani heritage experts wanted more time, let them have it. As a result, the subaltern got to speak.

Euphoria and caution greet a new democratic experiment

L K Sharma 31 January 2014

Mr. Kejriwal’s supporters now begin to question the legality of his conduct,his utterances about there being no real democracy in India, and about the futility of celebrating Republic Day.

Moral panic in India

L K Sharma 20 January 2014

Transitions and disruptions are changing relations between generations, between genders, between classes and between religious groups. It is not just a simple conflict between tradition and modernity that sparks occasional violence. India has become an excellent laboratory for studying change.