As Narendra Modi's image takes a global beating, even India gets singed

The image of India as a seriously flawed democracy is also likely to get deeply etched in international psyche and that may take a very long time to undo

Hugging world leaders, taking ‘selfies’ with them and organising mega-events in foreign cities to burnish Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image, have started bringing diminishing returns. The world is waking up to recognising the Modi regime for what it always was – illiberal and majoritarian. The domestic media is far too domesticated to point to the emperor’s new clothes. It has been left, therefore, to the western media to point out that he runs an autocratic, authoritarian, Hindu majoritarian government.

And that must hurt.

Why else would the government begin by punishing an easy target like Aatish Taseer whose Time magazine