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Firmly denying she belonged to the activist-writers’ category, the author of The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy, on Saturday said it was wrong to label her an activist just because her writings take up the cause of marginalised sections of society. Replying to a question, Roy, the first Indian to win a Booker prize for literature, said activism was a subject that needed elaborate discussion, stressing that her non-fictional writing was her way of expressing “myriad forms of resistance” to “wrong” policies. The writer, known for her straight talk and anti-establishment views, had reservations about the application of the term “activist” in her case by whom she referred to as “market-driven” media, who by and large considered this breed as “boring” people who just repeated ad nauseam whatever they had to say. There wasn’t a slightest hint of arrogance or harshness in her words or demeanour as was widely attributed to the writer, whose second fictional work the literary world wa...

Just a few weeks back everything was picture-perfect for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Though India’s main opposition party has been a pariah among the secular parties because of their communal ideology, it got wider acceptance as a reliable opposition that could fight the ruling front mired in neck-deep corruption allegations. With general election fast approaching, the party was getting ready with their knights and rooks in the corners. It even tried to woo and take sides with anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal and his India against Corruption (IAC) movement. But dashing all the hopes of BJP, Kejriwal who has targeted the ruling front at Centre, exposed party chief Nitin Gadkari’s bogus companies and how he amassed wealth of inappropriate proportion. While the party was struggling to get over from corruption charges, Gadkari was caught in a bigger controversy for drawing an unholy comparison between Swami Vivekananda and don Dawood Ibrahim. Later he disowned his statement...

Just a few weeks back everything was picture-perfect for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Though India’s main opposition party has been a pariah among the secular parties because of its communal ideology, it got wider acceptance as a reliable opposition that could fight the ruling front mired in neck-deep corruption allegations. With the general election fast approaching, the party was getting ready with its knights and rooks in the corners. It even tried to woo and take sides with anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal and his India against Corruption (IAC) movement. But the party’s chief Nitin Gadkari has damaged that built-up image with his unholy don-seer comparison remarks, disowning it and finally offering a regret to save his as well as the party’s image. Even before that Kejriwal has dashed the BJP’s hopes of coming back to power at the Centre and proved how equally corrupt the country’s leading opposition too is. His bait was none other than Nitin Gadkari, who they al...