Newswallah: Long Reads Edition

ReutersA magazine stand on a railway platform in Mumbai.

A bearded, grinning Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent of the ruling party in India, graces the latest cover of The Week. The cabinet reshuffle may not have worked according to his plan, the magazine tells us, but he has a blueprint for 2014.

The story says that Mr. Gandhi, who is the general secretary of the governing Indian National Congress, has the responsibility of setting the tone and pace for the party's “battle moves” for the general elections scheduled for 2014 but which may take place earlier.

The article delves into a visit by Mr. Gandhi to Prime Mini ster Manmohan Singh's house on Oct. 17.

The meeting on October 17 highlighted Rahul's footprint on key issues in both the government and the party. The meeting put the final touches, said a party leader, on launching the first stage of an ambitious GenNext plan. A plan that would “significantly recharge the inner dynamics of the government and the party in the 18-month run-up to the next general elections.”

The more crucial Stage II would be rolled out either in early November or just after Diwali, and officially anoint Rahul as working president or secretary-general. It would give him complete power on all important appointments and decision-making, powers equalled only by the Congress chief.

Tehelka magazine makes a case for why the chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, is facing his toughest election battle yet. The story, entitled “The Iron Man begins to rust,” says that many communities aren't likely to vote for him .

Here's an interesting anecdote the magazine shares about Mr. Modi's address to a meeting of senior party members:

Seated in the first few rows was an MP (member of Parliament) from the state known for his opposition to Modi. As the chief minister rose to speak, the MP whispered to the person next to him that Modi would cry while delivering his speech. The news spread across the room, whisper to whisper. Some laughed it off; others waited, curious to know if the prediction would come true.

Modi did not disappoint; he recollected a quote of Swami Vivekananda and a tear dropped from his right eye. As if on cue, the cameras zoomed in on him as he wiped his eye with a linen kerchief. The stunned neighbour turned searchingly towards the MP. The latter laughed. “In Gujarat,” he said, “our seniors, including the likes of Ashok Bhatt, have resorted to the same tactic when they seemed to have been losing ground among their own men.”

The magazine notes that although opinion polls predict a win for Mr. Modi, some factors in Gujarat point to “the unpredictable nature of politics” and concludes that a different picture may emerge.

Open magazine has the Bollywood beat covered with a story (only in print for now) on a reported rift between Shah Rukh Khan and Ajay Devgn. The two actors who work in the Hindi film industry, also known as Bollywood, are starring in movies slated to be released on the Hindu festival of Diwali, which is Tuesday.

“Both stars have gone on record saying they have no mutual enmity and this is just a fight between two production houses,” the magazine says. “But theories abound of the two middle-aged stars preferring to kiss a frog than shake hands with each other.”

A legal tussle between the producers of the two films has ensued and the magazine asks “Is there a bigger, personal war being fought here?”

Stirring the Pot and Striking Fear in India

NEW DELHI

Arvind Kejriwal, center, has become an unlikely bomb thrower in Indian politics.

HUNDREDS of reporters stood waiting, everyone expecting a helping of scandal, and Arvind Kejriwal did not disappoint. He pushed past the television cameras, smiling slyly in his white Gandhian cap, and took a seat on the podium. The crowd pressed forward, drawn by the question now shaking India's political establishment: Who will Arvind go after next?

Slight and bespectacled, with a neatly trimmed mustache, Mr. Kejriwal, 44, could be mistaken for a bookkeeper, rather than what he has become - the unlikely bomb thrower of Indian politics. His recent appearance was one of his staged media spectacles, in which he has produced documents and leveled corruption charges at some of India's most powerful political figures. Corruption, he argues, corrodes all the political parties in a fundamentally compromised system.

His solution? The formation of a new political party, in time for national elections in 2014.

“We hope that the people of this country will be able to do something in 2014,” Mr. Kejriwal said.

That Mr. Kejriwal is now one of India's most powerful figures represents a strikingly swift turnaround. Only months ago, conventional wisdom held that he was finished politically. He had been the mastermind of the huge anticorruption movement that last year shook the country - but had then seemed to miscalculate.

First, the movement fizzled. Then, earlier this year, his alliance shattered with Anna Hazare, the hunger striker and symbol of the movement: Mr. Hazare unexpectedly balked over plans to form a political party.

Politicos snickered that Mr. Kejriwal's party, without Mr. Hazare, would be dead before it was born. Mr. Kejriwal, the backstage manager, would now be the public face, which raised a question: Would ordinary Indians rally behind a party whose public draw was a wiry, intense former tax examiner? That remains to be seen, but no one is snickering at Mr. Kejriwal any longer.

Instead, he is feared. He has accused Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi, the country's most powerful politician, of reaping millions in improper real estate deals. He has delved into the business dealings of Nitin Gadkari, leader of the main opposition party. He has alleged improprieties in a charity for the handicapped run by the family of Salman Khurshid, the country's new foreign minister - prompting a barely veiled threat from Mr. Khurshid.

In some instances, he is merely resurrecting and amplifying existing accusations. Yet, through it all, Mr. Kejriwal has steadily pushed his simple, if radical, message: India's democracy, the largest in the world, does not merely need reform. India needs a revolution.

IT is Sunday night, three days after Mr. Kejriwal's news conference on Oct. 25. His target that day was Reliance Industries Ltd., India's most powerful corporation, which he accused of exerting political influence to bilk billions of dollars on natural gas contracts. (On Friday, Mr. Kejriwal held another news conference, this time accusing Mukesh Ambani, the owner of Reliance, and others of illegally stashing money overseas.)

Reliance has denied the charges - as have all of his targets - but Mr. Kejriwal seemed pleased. The establishment has been rattled.

Now Mr. Kejriwal sat inside a cramped conference room of his headquarters, in a small house at the edge of the capital, beside a dingy slum. He was engaged in a ritual of Indian politics: the public audience. One man had traveled hundreds of miles to pledge his support. Another unexpectedly started singing a tribute song. A father and mother presented their 10-year-old son as a future foot soldier in Mr. Kejriwal's efforts.

“After seeing you,” the boy's mother said, “I have the courage that now we can raise our voices.”

Mr. Kejriwal grew up in the city of Hisar, in the northern state of Haryana, the son of an engineer. Like many ambitious Indians, his parents wanted him to become a doctor or an engineer, and the young Mr. Kejriwal studied obsessively to gain entrance to India's most prestigious engineering school. After graduation, he worked for three years as a mechanical engineer before testing into India's elite civil service as a tax examiner.

It would change his life. He met his wife, another tax examiner, but also found himself confronted with rampant bribe-taking. “There was corruption at every stage,” Mr. Kejriwal recalled.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting from New Delhi.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 10, 2012, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Stirring the Pot and Striking Fear in India.