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| Gandhi Jayanti under MNS hooliganism Our Correspondent There was an ugly irony in Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray’s latest essay in hooliganism. On Gandhi Jayanti—when India celebrates the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation—a well-known hoodlum lets loose his goons against a movie, <.. (full story) |  | |
| Wages of casteism: Khagaria carnage exposes Nitish’s politics Our Correspondent One of the most persistent pathologies of modern times is the belief that an excess dose of any evil is its own cure. There is so much inequity, injustice, exploitation in the world, our philosophers and intellectuals told us. The way out is a new system,.. (full story) | |
| Nation vs people: 60 years of communist rule of in China Our Correspondent “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind,” Albert Einstein famously said. If there is one country where, in this day and age, nationalism has erupted as measles, it is China. As at the Beijing Olympics last year, the entire might.. (full story) | | |
| Spectacle=protest Our Correspondent A stampede takes place in a government school in east Delhi; five girls are killed and many more are injured. About 20 days later, the school reopens. There is no parent-teacher interface to ensure greater security for the students; there is no meaningful.. (full story) | |
| Tryst with turpitude Our Correspondent Union Home Minister P Chidambaram was not very polite—and, some would say, not very politic—when he said that state governments have reduced police officers to “a football, to be kicked around here and there, from one post to another, without regard to th.. (full story) | | |
| Obama’s insistence on NPT is wrong Our Correspondent India has done well to promptly and categorically reject the United Nations Security Council’s call for the signing of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The new impetus for the NPT has come from US President Barack Obama, who has led the UNSC to.. (full story) | |
| Trojan Horses: Ghandy’s arrest highlights old threat Our Correspondent On the face of it, Kobad Ghandy’s arrest as a member of the proscribed Naxalite group may appear bizarre—and this is the reason it evoked such media interest. For Ghandy was born to a rich Parsi couple, the father being a top executive in a pharma major; .. (full story) | | |
| Dinakaran issue shows worst of public debate Our Correspondent The most disgraceful aspect of the Justice PD Dinakaran issue is the imputation of casteist, parochial and communal motives to the people opposed to the Karnataka High Court Chief Justice’s elevation to the Supreme Court. The Government has dissociated it.. (full story) | |
| Looking back: Khap panchayats demand legal powers Our Correspondent It is a measure of the distortion of public discourse that in this day and age a demand is made for the granting of legal powers to a most retrograde of institution—caste or khap panchayats. The fashionable liberal would surely be revolted by such a deman.. (full story) | | |
| Universal venality Our Correspondent The recent violence on National Highway 24 near Hindon River barrage in Uttar Pradesh is symptomatic of much deeper rot in housing in particular and the system in general. The rioting took place against the administration’s attempt to demolish unauthorize.. (full story) | |
| Liberal craze: Obama Administration acts against CIA Our Correspondent It is one of the mysteries of modern world how liberals have come to hold beliefs that militate against the principles of liberalism as held by John Locke, John Stuart Mill and Ayn Rand. Once upon a time, liberals upheld ideals and values which strengthen.. (full story) | | |
| Vajpayee’s men need to explain rebellion Our Correspondent There is something curiously intriguing about the rebellions of the men who were trusted by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and given high offices. Suddenly, they have started seeing myriad shortcomings in and wickedness of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other.. (full story) | |
| Déjŕ vu: Pakistan modifies US-supply arms Our Correspondent We told you so—this is how India and others skeptical about Pakistan’s designs will react to the news that Pakistan modified the US supplied Harpoon anti-ship missile to strike at land targets. The modification is a violation the US Arms Control Export Ac.. (full story) | | |
| Mamata is rigid on land acquisition issue Our Correspondent In epics, literature and cinema, the forces representing the good and the reasonable almost invariably vanquish those representing evil. Unfortunately, in real life, it is not always reason that replaces unreason; sometimes greater irrationality subdues t.. (full story) | |
| Good riddance: BJP expels Jaswant over Jinnah book Our Correspondent If a man who could understand the English language but knew nothing about Indian politics were to visit our country, he would be amazed and baffled by the use of language. For in the Indian context, words and terms have assumed meanings and significances .. (full story) | | |
| Lessons to learn Our Correspondent L’affaire Air India offers the nation many lessons. First, it tells us what a burden public sector undertakings (PSUs) are or can become for the government and the public exchequer. The national carrier is losing Rs 200 a month; its accumulated losses are.. (full story) | |
| Why now? Vajpayee’s men need to explain rebellion Our Correspondent There is something curiously intriguing about the rebellions of the men who were trusted by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and given high offices. Suddenly, they have started seeing myriad shortcomings in and wickedness of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other.. (full story) | | |
| Just do it Our Correspondent One of the malaises afflicting India is that the basic functions of state—law and order, the justice system, administration and national security—have ceased to be important for the powers that be. At best, these get perfunctory attention of the political.. (full story) | |
| Mamata vs Railways Our Correspondent That Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has emerged as the New Left is a truism. Keen to replace the commies as the Redeemer-in-Chief of Indians, if not mankind, she has been championing one rotten cause after the other with a frightening earnestness. She t.. (full story) | | |
| Legal terror: SC hits out at draconian 498A Our Correspondent The Supreme Court should be lauded for its effort to mitigate the excesses of the notorious dowry legislation. It has tried to limit the use (which is often abuse) of the Section 498(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which has been the bane of many a fam.. (full story) | |
| Hard talk: Navy Chief concerned about China threat Our Correspondent There is something rotten in the state of national defence. For defence chiefs have been regularly expressing dissatisfaction over preparedness. The recent statement by the Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee and Navy Chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, about.. (full story) | | |
| Buta plays Dalit card Our Correspondent National Commission for Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes Chairman Buta Singh is doing what every politician in trouble does: he is screaming that he is being politically targeted, that there are forces which are out to destroy him and his son, Sarobjit.. (full story) | |
| Joshi suffers from draconian legislation Our Correspondent In the heat and dust raised by the controversy over Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s statement about Chief Minister Mayawati, an extremely crucial issue has been generally ignored: the misuse of the Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribes (Pr.. (full story) | | |
| Truth-proof politics: Our netas refuse to discuss prohibition Our Correspondent It needed an outspoken liquor baron to remind the nation that the prohibition policy in Gujarat is nothing but sanctimoniousness institutionalised. In the wake of the hooch tragedy in Mahatma Gandhi’s state, Vijay Mallya said, “The deaths resulting from t.. (full story) | |
| Old story: Chinese repression in Xinjiang Our Correspondent It is the same old story in Xinjiang, the Muslim majority province of China. The Uighurs, an ethnic and religious minority, are being persecuted and discriminated against by the majority Han settlers, who are backed by Beijing. Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled U.. (full story) | | |
| CPM sacks Achuthanandan from politburo Our Correspondent Many people believe, it is said, that wrongs aren’t wrong if it’s done by nice people like ourselves. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) certainly believes in this cardinal principle of hypocrisy. CPM bosses talk vociferously about honesty and transpa.. (full story) | |
| Caste aspersions: Maya’s cronies indulge in sophistry Our Correspondent Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and her Government have been rattled by the questions raised about the revenue-guzzling Dalit memorials and statues. If there is one example of power going to one’s head, it is Mayawati. Her impressive victory in the .. (full story) | | |
| Reforms: Survey proposes, Budget disposes Our Correspondent Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has squandered an excellent opportunity to re-energize the economy, speed up liberalization, and embark on the gigantic task of fiscal consolidation. The opportunity was provided by the exit of the Left from the national .. (full story) | |
| Capital scam: MCD employs 45,000 fake staff Our Correspondent It can happen only in India. In the national Capital of the country which aspires to become a global power, the municipal body employs 45,000 fictitious people; even this number may be a conservative estimate, as there are fears that the Municipal Corpora.. (full story) | | |
| Survey, Rly Budget not on same wavelength Our Correspondent That no genuinely democratic government can afford to have uniform, monolithic views on every issue is a truism. In a coalition regime, the differences are more than nuanced; and in something as variegated as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the dif.. (full story) | |
| Help us, or else…: AI bosses, unions blackmail nation Our Correspondent The ongoing drama over the bailout package to Air India (AI) is extremely depressing. The worst fears about public sector undertakings (PSUs) are coming true. That the public sector is bad for the exchequer, the economy and the nation is a self-evident tr.. (full story) | | |
| Serves them right: Lalgarh police book intellectuals Our Correspondent A police case against the intellectuals who visited the Maoist-infested Lalgarh in West Bengal may appear a travesty of justice. They have been booked for the violation of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The section deals with “unlawful assemb.. (full story) | |
| BJP’s death wish: Soon, it will support Sachar Our Correspondent Guilt—which a historian called as the “corrosive vice of the civilized”—has completely infected the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). If there is one person who is the embodiment of guilt, it is Sudheendra Kulkarni. He has the capability to worm his way to th.. (full story) | | |
| Scapegoat Jaitley Our Correspondent Arun Jaitley is fast emerging as the scapegoat in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Everything that he says or does is doctored by his rivals in the party. The latest one is the resignation he tendered as party general secretary immediately after being el.. (full story) | |
| Dangerous liaisons: Mamata should dump Maoists Our Correspondent The murder and mayhem faced by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) activists may be viewed as poetic justice, chickens coming home to roost or the ruling party thugs meeting their nemesis in the Maoists who seem to have a tacit alliance with the Trinam.. (full story) | | |
| China sells fake drugs as ‘Made in India’ Our Correspondent The Government has been prompt in registering protest against spurious Chinese medicines which are being sold in Nigeria (and perhaps elsewhere as well) with the ‘Made in India’ tag. “Taking serious note of the action by scrupulous elements to malign the .. (full story) | |
| Three musketeers: Blame game by Kulkarni, Brajesh, Jaswant Our Correspondent The gross ineptitude of Sudheendra Kulkarni, Brajesh Mishra and Jaswant Singh is matched only by the brazenness they have shown recently; in the name of introspection into the rout of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha elections, they have .. (full story) | | |
| US loves being fooled by Pak Our Correspondent The Obama Administration is increasingly proving to be an appeaser of Islamic terror and Pakistan, the engine house of the terror. Close on the heels of his disgraceful speech in Egypt comes the revelation (or is it really a revelation?) by the Pentagon t.. (full story) | |
| Identity politics is down, not out Our Correspondent When the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) got an impressive mandate last month, we were told that the politics of identity was on its last legs. The defeat of Ram Vilas Pawan and his party, the wiping out of Ramadoss & son, the disappointmen.. (full story) | | |
| Obama reaches out: But would Muslim world respond Our Correspondent The best thing that can be said about US President Barack Hussein Obama’s speech at Cairo University, Egypt, is that his intentions are indeed noble. He ended the address, saying, “The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s .. (full story) | |
| Privatize, don’t disinvest Our Correspondent One good result of the marginalization of the Left is that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government can now restart the sell-off process of public sector undertakings (PSUs). But this opportunity should not be squandered by using PSUs as milch cow.. (full story) | | |
| Insolence: No other word explains Pak actions Our Correspondent There is a Hindi saying that if no amount of effort can straighten the dog’s tail: Pakistan is like the fabled dog’s tail; it will refuse to give up its promotion of jihad. After a brief lull in advancing the anti-India agenda—primarily due to the interna.. (full story) | |
| Pak is insolent Our Correspondent There is a Hindi saying that if no amount of effort can straighten the dog’s tail: Pakistan is like the fabled dog’s tail; it will refuse to give up its promotion of jihad. After a brief lull in advancing the anti-India agenda—primarily due to the interna.. (full story) | | |
| Some of politicians’ pledges are better broken Our Correspondent People in democracies often rue about the broken promises of politicians. In India, however, there is an unusual concern, though not widely spelt out: what if the newly-appointed coalition, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by the Congress, decide.. (full story) | |
| Hubris unlimited: Left refuses to see the truth Our Correspondent One would have expected the Left, in the wake of its dismal performance at the hustings, to do some honest soul-searching, to examine—if not admit to the untenability of—the basic tenets of communism, to show some humility of being grossly wrong about its.. (full story) | | |
| US mollycoddles Pak Our Correspondent US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was considerably candid in lambasting her country’s policy towards Pakistan over the last 30 years as “incoherent.” She said, “I think when we ask the question it is fair to apportion responsibility to the Pakistanis... (full story) | |
| Poverty of analysis Our Correspondent Most comments on the Congress’ impressive victory and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) dismal performance in the general elections appear to be moral discourse rather than political analysis. It is in the tradition of classic morality fable: evil (rea.. (full story) | | |
| Magnificent Monday: Sensex zooms; Rajiv Gandhi killer dead Our Correspondent It is not only troubles which come in troves; good tidings, too, can follow one after another. Last weekend brought the pleasant news that, after a long time, a stable government would be installed at the Centre. Serendipity was concomitant: the Left was .. (full story) | |
| Voter Candide: Mandate repudiates weird ideas Our Correspondent In politics, wrote Will Durant, the longest distance between two points is the straight line. So, let’s go to the Europe of eighteenth century to understand the politics of 21st century India. In 1759, the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire wrote Candi.. (full story) | | |
| Frailty, thy name political analysis Our Correspondent How fickle is conventional wisdom! And how pliable are the views of our political analysts and commentators! Till 8 o’clock on the morning of May 16, everybody said and believed that, in this era of coalition politics, the small and regional parties set t.. (full story) | |
| Fracture heals up: Irrelevance of small parties Our Correspondent So, all the predictions of a gravely fractured mandate and the smaller players calling the shots have gone for a six. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA), at the time of writing this report, may not have got a clear majority but there is no.. (full story) | | |
| Tyranny of polls: Common man, politicos bear EC whims Our Correspondent Freedom and democracy are often considered kindred. It was Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria who, in his celebrated book, The Future Of Freedom, questioned the postulate that that two go hand in hand. Nowhere else this questioning is more relevant tha.. (full story) | |
| We can… perhaps: May Obama succeed in Pakistan Our Correspondent US pressure on Pakistan to act against the Taliban has worked to some extent as the security personnel step up drive against the jihadis. But it is too early to come to any conclusion. America is said to be one of the prime movers in Pakistan (the other t.. (full story) | | |
| Evil marches on: LTTE clout is frightening Our Correspondent A most disturbing aspect of the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka is the uncovering of immense clout that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) enjoys all over the world. The LTTE is a terrorist organization proscribed by dozens of countries, including.. (full story) | |
| Manifestoes cannot be legally enforceable Our Correspondent The abject failure of the political class in performing its basic duties has not only disgusted the people—especially those in the middle class—but also propelled them to play an active role in the public sphere. So, we have banker Meera Sanyal and artist.. (full story) | | |
| Unzipping a row: Akshay, Twinkle charged with obscenity Our Correspondent How prurient one can get? Well, in India, there are no limits. At a fashion show, a movie star, who is doing the catwalk, encounters a problem with the zip of his trousers. His wife, a former film actress, helps him out and fixes his zip—much to the delig.. (full story) | |
| EC is behaving like an ill-tempered school master Our Correspondent The Election Commission’s diktat that the electronic media cannot telecast anything which can influence voters in the areas where polls are to take place in the 48 hours preceding voting amounts not just to the gagging of the media. It is also a curb on p.. (full story) | | |
| Political class refuses to take on Naxalites Our Correspondent The killing of dozens of security men by the Naxalites in the first phase of general elections should not surprise anybody familiar with the increasing virulence of Leftwing extremism. It was over two and a half years ago that Prime Minister Manmohan Sing.. (full story) | |
| Kick the ‘but’: Now a slipper hurled at Advani Our Correspondent The Congress has indeed been graceful and unequivocal in its condemnation of the slipper attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate LK Advani; it has certainly been more prudent and refined than the saffron party’s initial .. (full story) | | |
| Housing needs to be decontrolled Our Correspondent A strange anomaly is emerging in the realty sector: there is a piled-up inventory and a huge demand in the market at the same time. In metropolitan cities, every second home built since 2007 remains unsold, according to a survey conducted by a leading rea.. (full story) | |
| Obama’s overtures Our Correspondent US President Barack Obama’s attempt to reach out to the leaders and people of Iran appears to be a blind following of the liberal dogmas which are in fashion these days. He released a new video message with Farsi subtitles on the festival of Nowruz, or ne.. (full story) | | |
| Nano has negotiated all bumps Our Correspondent The Nano has finally been launched. After a million trials and tribulations, doubts and difficulties, after Mamata Banerjee and Singur, after everything—Tata Motors boss Ratan Tata and his team were able to deliver the world’s cheapest car at the promised.. (full story) | |
| Googly to Govt Our Correspondent The unseemly spats over the moving of Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament would surely gall the purist. He is likely to exclaim, “This is not cricket!” Well, the IPL’s Twenty20 games have been as much about of cricket as about money, glamour and merry-.. (full story) | | |
| Nebulous front: An idea whose time may never come Our Correspondent With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) losing an important ally in the Biju Janata Dal and the Congress not looking on an upswing—the grand old party has a marginal presence in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and the prospects do not seem to be improving—the nebu.. (full story) | |
| More denial: Pak avoids uncomfortable questions Our Correspondent Pakistanis want that the entire world should believe the fantasies which they consider as truths. In the wake of 26/11, they feigned ignorance about the attacks and the attackers; it was only under intense international pressure that they did accept that .. (full story) | | |
| Obama’s folly Our Correspondent The policy shift that US President Barack Obama intends to effect in the superpower’s relations vis-ŕ-vis Taliban does not augur well for Afghanistan and the South Asian region. Obama wants to do an Iraq in Afghanistan and the neighboring areas. In an int.. (full story) | |
| Sonia’s sophistry Our Correspondent How pompous and sanctimonious our politicians can get! Congress president Sonia Gandhi now claims that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has successfully exerted “diplomatic pressure” on Pakistan. Speaking at a rally in Haryana, she said, “.. (full story) | | |
| Art faces moral policing Our Correspondent Now art is facing censorship. A Delhi-based artist Damayanti Sharma had been told by Mumbai’s oldest public art gallery, the Jehangir Art Gallery, that she could not display some of her paintings “for fear of offending the sensibilities of some quarters.”.. (full story) | |
| Sarkari Satyam: CAG slams wayward Govt spending Our Correspondent The Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG’s) latest report on Bharat Nirman and other flagship schemes of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has exposed the insincerity of the powers that be. According to a news report, “Over Rs 51,000 cror.. (full story) | | |
| Late cut: But Budget sops won’t help Cong Our Correspondent In his interim Budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had said on February 16, “Constitutional propriety requires that new Government formulates the tax and expenditure policies for 2009-10.” The leaders of his party tried to climb the high mora.. (full story) | |
| Myth-making: Interim Budget as poll speech Our Correspondent The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is of the belief that it redeemed the nation when it came to power in 2004, rescuing the people from the clutches of a 'communal,' anti-poor dispensation led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the last five years.. (full story) | | |
| Barbarians at gates: Pakistan fights for survival Our Correspondent Its seems that Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari was not crying wolf or trying to gain the sympathy of the world when he said on February 14 that the Taliban are "trying to take over the state of Pakistan." Zardari said the Taliban, who were incidentall.. (full story) | |
| LTTE's clout: Where did it come from? Our Correspondent It is shocking to find the support the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been able to generate in India. The proscribed organization was responsible for the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, leading to its ban by India in 1992.. (full story) | | |
| Saffron art-iculation: Karnataka Minister incenses artists Our Correspondent The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems too eager to score self-goals. After allowing the thugs like Sriram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik to go berserk and alienating the young—at least those who live in cities—the party has decided to antagonize another sect.. (full story) | |
| Antulay unleashed Our Correspondent Minority Affairs Minister AR Antulay has been behaving as if he were the spokesman of the Pakistan Government. His irresponsible and sickening remarks on ATS chief Hemant Karkare's killing are similar to the views of Pakistani hotheads who have blamed the.. (full story) | | |
| Loose control Boost cheap housing sans intervention Our Correspondent The Government has finally realised that life in the urban areas needs to be streamlined and improved upon. Much of urban living is substandard; often it is subhuman. It is not just the smaller towns in Bimaru states which have been rendered wastelands by.. (full story) | |
| Social justice? Blankets distributed on caste lines in Bihar Our Correspondent Good ideas, when executed, may or may not bear fruit; but bad ideas, even with slightest acceptance, invariably cause havoc. Social justice is one bad idea whose virulence has assumed alarming proportions; it has created divisions even among the victims o.. (full story) | | |
| Blue terror Killer buses continue run in Delhi Our Correspondent The bus rapid transport (BRT) system is not the only bane of the people of Delhi. The old scourge of the Capital, Bluelines, also continues to torment them. For the year 2008, the killer buses ended up claiming 121 lives—and there is no hope of their leth.. (full story) | |
| Shibboleths galore: Defence purchases suffer due to PSUs Our Correspondent If Pakistan or China attacks us, what should be our response? We wish we could tell our enemies: don't fight with us, we are not properly equipped! But this is exactly the situation. Consider the news report, which says that the Indian Army does not have .. (full story) | | |
| US, UK need to pressure Pak on terror Our Correspondent Now that the West has accepted the Indian charge against Pakistan—that the latter has become the safe haven of terrorists—would there be any action against the merchants of death? This is a question whose answer every Indian would like to know, but this i.. (full story) | |
| Booting Bush: US Prez deserves better treatment Our Correspondent It is ironical that Iraqi TV journalist Muntader al-Zaidi, by throwing a pair of shoes at US President George Bush, proved that the world's most powerful man has indeed kept his word: he has brought freedom to Iraq. It is indeed because of democracy in th.. (full story) | | |
| BRT again: Dikshit should dump project Our Correspondent The most dreadful consequence of Sheila Dikshit's coming back to power could be the expansion of bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor project. A brainless brainchild of a couple of quixotic professors, the BRT is hated by all—commuters, traffic police, Parlia.. (full story) | |
| BJP may downplay terror issue Our Correspondent How fast conventional wisdom changes in this age of digital speed! Till a few days ago, political pundits were telling us that terror would be the biggest issue defining election results in the foreseeable future. Now, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP.. (full story) | | |
| Dodgy dragon: China Blocks efforts to ban JuD Our Correspondent The revelation by the United Nations that three attempts to ban Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), the frontal organization of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in the Security Council were blocked by China in the past once again underlines the nefarious role.. (full story) | |
| PM, Oppn unite against terror Our Correspondent It took the outrage of November 26 to wake up our political class to the threat of terror. Thousands of deaths before November 26 failed to sensitize our political masters to get their act together. Typically, the Government would 'strongly condemn' the '.. (full story) | | |
| ISI, CPM are on same frequency Our Correspondent It is only the massive public outcry against terror that the communists and their fellow-traveling intellectuals are relatively quiet these days; otherwise, they would have been peddling their discredited and dangerous theories which portray mass-murderer.. (full story) | |
| India needs to shun war talk Our Correspondent In the context of India weighing options to safeguard its security after the Mumbai attacks, US President-elect Barack Obama on Monday said that sovereign nations "obviously have the right to defend themselves" and that India had the right to bring those .. (full story) | | |
| Impotent rage: Middle class should act, not just talk Our Correspondent The raging anti-politician sentiment is understandable. Over the years, politicians of all hues, especially those belonging to the Congress and its allies, have ignored the most crucial affairs like security, governance, and law and order. The results are.. (full story) | |
| Scapegoats galore: Sonia is guiltier than Patils, Deshmukh Our Correspondent The term scapegoat has an interesting history. According to www.wikipedia.org, "The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in Judaism during the times of the Temple in Je.. (full story) | | |
| China bullies India Our Correspondent China is at it once again. The country, which nurtures the ambition to become an overbearing superpower, has restarted firing verbal salvos at India. This time the pretext is Dalai Lama. "The Indian Government has made solemn commitment about not allowing.. (full story) | |
| DMK wants meddling in Lankan affairs Our Correspondent DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's heart bleeds for all Tamils, whether they are in his own state or somewhere else. Which is not unusual, for his party was founded to promote the cause of Tamils; and it has been doing that for qu.. (full story) | | |
| G-20(20) vision: Follow Bush's words, not deeds Our Correspondent The global financial crisis has given a great deal of bad press to capitalism. All enemies of free market are ganging up, resuscitating their discredited slogans and making a case for big government all over the world. Worse, they seem to be gaining groun.. (full story) | |
| Doubly vile: PCI's media guidelines are unwarranted Our Correspondent The Press Council of India's (PCI's) new guidelines for reporting on people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and suffering from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) not only smack of political correctness but are also an attempt t.. (full story) | | |
| Speaking out: Tata exhorts people of Bengal Our Correspondent In India, we have academics, bureaucrats, technocrats, even a few politicians who champion the cause of free market economy or, to be precise, capitalism. Surprisingly, it is the capitalists who keep mum over the bigger issues of economy; at the most, the.. (full story) | |
| Our kind of guy: Badal Jr likes branded products Our Correspondent In a country where anti-business and anti-American biases are rife, it indeed takes courage for a politician to be seen as an endorser of the product of a multinational company (MNC). What, however, makes Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Badal's associat.. (full story) | | |
| State of denial: RR Patil downplay hate crime Our Correspondent The venom that Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray has been spewing has started showing effects. A 25-year-old Uttar Pradesh migrant was lynched in a local train by fellow commuters, who allegedly picked up a fight with him and his three.. (full story) | |
| Politicians use words to fight terror Our Correspondent Yet another outrage and yet another flood of sham indignation by the powers that be. Initial reports mentioned that the Bangladesh-based HuJI was behind the serial blasts in Assam, which killed more than three scores of people and injured 470. Union Home .. (full story) | | |
| Industriousness needed Our Correspondent Data have a weird habit of springing surprises, often unpleasant ones. So, the index of industrial production (IIP) for August, showing 1.3 per cent growth against 10.9 per cent in August 2007, startled Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who actually questio.. (full story) | |
| Ode to farewell: A Kishore Kumar song for Mamata Our Correspondent In one of his best songs, zindagi ke safar me guzar jaate hain jo makaam… (from the movie Aap ki kasam), Kishore Kumar sang these immortal lines, Kal tadapna pade yaad me jinki/Rok lo roothkar unko jaane na do/Baad me pyaar ke chahe bhejo.. (full story) | | |
| Scoring self-goal: Sheila Dikshit persists with BRT Our Correspondent Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit seems to be determined score a self-goal for herself and for her party. After a series of gaffes, many of them in the sphere of public transport, she is insisting on the continuance of the bus rapid transport (BRT) corr.. (full story) | |
| Jet-tisoning reason: Sacked employees behaving irresponsibly Our Correspondent The process of liberalization began in 1991; a number of important decisions were taken to open up the economy; many a chain that was fabricated during the high noon of Nehruvian socialism was broken. But, unfortunately, the pernicious mindset fashioned d.. (full story) | | |
| Silly cleverness: Congress' cunning on Jamia encounter Our Correspondent In politics one needs to be clever, but excessive cleverness is dangerous. This is what the Congress is doing: it is brimming with cleverness. Congress leaders, it seems, believe that they are too smart to fool all, the Hindus as well as the Muslims. Over.. (full story) | |
| Relying on deadwood: States depend on public sector in mining Our Correspondent Even after 17 years of economic reforms, policy-making suffers from a peculiar paralysis, affecting the most critical areas. Mining is one such area. The Government cleared the new National Mineral Policy on March 14 this year. The new policy had an ambit.. (full story) | | |
| Goondaraj has to stop fast Our Correspondent It is testimony to the declining standards of the political system, community living and public discourse that a ruffian like Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray is not only able to insult the biggest family of Hindi cinema but also manag.. (full story) | |
| Lucky tyrant: Putin tries to rehabilitate Stalin Our Correspondent The 21st century apologists of Stalin, keen to portray his mass murders as "entirely rational," seem to have ignored a key feature of jurisprudence: an element of rationality makes manslaughter more serious and attracts harsher punishment. A premeditated .. (full story) | | |
| Arjun's arrows: Keen to destroy Brand IIT Our Correspondent The Prime Minister's scientific adviser CNR Rao has a point when he says that opening eight new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is a "disaster." Six new IITs—in Orissa, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh—have become operational from the cu.. (full story) | |
| Disingenuousness infests political debate Our Correspondent The height that insincerity has soared in political debate is indeed breathtaking. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has been selling the Indo-US civil nuclear deal as a panacea for all our energy-related problems. It wants all.. (full story) | | |
| Good move: DPP liberalizes defence purchases Our Correspondent The new defence procurement procedure (DPP-2008) will be remembered as a major achievement of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government. As the country begins the military purchases worth $30-50 billion for the next five years, the importance of li.. (full story) | |
| Squatting on justice Our Correspondent The Supreme Court's exasperation with the waywardness of the political class is understandable. Additional Solicitor General Amarender Saran tells the apex court that the Union Government has decided not to amend Section 441 IPC (Criminal Trespass) for pr.. (full story) | | |
| Harebrained idea: Fund cannot check inflation Our Correspondent It is testimony to our rotten public discourse that bad ideas continue to rule the roost—and find receptive minds in the quarters that matter. At a time when inflation is soaring, many such ideas are doing the rounds, all of them offering a palliative, if.. (full story) | |
| Ministers blunder, jihadis thunder Our Correspondent The patience of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and of United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, with Home Minister Shivraj Patil (and with other ministers) is limitless. Nothing else explains the continuation of such an incompetent and inept p.. (full story) | | |
| NCW wants to straitjacket women Our Correspondent The National Commission for Women (NCW) is at it again. Keen to maintain its status of being a prominent champion of political correctness and sanctimonious, the commission has arrogated to itself the power to impose morality—that is, morality as defined .. (full story) | |
| Act fast: Bring PPP in education sector Our Correspondent The huge, and increasing, gap between the demand and supply in education can be breached if the public-private partnership (PPP) model is accepted and speedily implemented in the sector. The Planning Commission has been promoting PPP in this area, which h.. (full story) | | |
| Expelling Chatterjee: Intolerant CPM, hypocritical Congress Our Correspondent Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat's behavior towards Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee resembles that of the bully who gets bashed up in a brawl and comes to home to batter his own wife. Having failed to dislodge the Co.. (full story) | |
| Bitter-sweet win: Now PM has to perform Our Correspondent The vote of confidence on July 22, 2008, will be remembered with bitter and sweet memories. It was the day when the filth of Indian politics, which is usually covered with meretricious slogans and mendacious speeches, came to the surface. Bharatiya Janata.. (full story) | | |
| Reds don't respect institutions Our Correspondent The communists are known for their antipathy towards democracy and its institutions; and the antipathy is the product and function of their ideology whose prime objective is the establishment of a "dictatorship of the proletariat." So, it is scarcely surp.. (full story) | |
| Stealing freedom: Govt wants to control steel sector Our Correspondent Power not only corrupts; it also gives the delusion of being all-powerful and all-knowing. It is another matter that the powerful often prove to be impotent and ignorant, which is the case of those who presently hold high offices. All the steps taken by t.. (full story) | | |
| Let Goa pay: SEZ promoters should not suffer Our Correspondent The Centre has done well by imposing a cost on denotification of special economic zones (SEZs). The Goa Government has been demanding the scrapping of SEZs in the state for quite some time, despite the fact that it had itself, among other authorities, giv.. (full story) | |
| Deal doesn't constrain us militarily Our Correspondent The Indo-US civil nuclear deal, which seemed to be the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's Achilles' heel, may prove to be its trump card. With the entire focus shifting on the deal, the big failures of the ruling dispensation appear to have be.. (full story) | | |
| Good riddance: Left goes out; SP enters Our Correspondent On the face of it, the Samajwadi Party's support to the Government may appear to be too tough a bargain. How is it different from the cantankerous communists? Even before formally joining hands with the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the SP has.. (full story) | |
| Key issues like energy take back seat Our Correspondent It is a well-known fact that India imports about three-fourths of the petroleum products it uses. With crude prices soaring, and with no signs of their coming to the level a year ago, the Government should have ensured that the country achieved reasonable.. (full story) | | |
| New diktats: Left wants end of Indo-Israeli ties Our Correspondent That the Left, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), ardently promotes policies hostile to the national interest is a truism. While the Left's baneful influence on economic is quite well-known and widely commented upon, its equally invidious sway.. (full story) | |
| Band aid: FM sentimentalism won't help Our Correspondent Our politicians, especially those from the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), have become so accustomed to sermonizing and tutoring that they tend to ignore the audience. Finance Minister P Chidambaram was addressing the meeting of Energy Ministers.. (full story) | | |
| Gagging creativity orders on Arushi Our Correspondent The Arushi murder case has done a number of things. First, it exposed the spectacular incompetence of UP Police: such was the shoddiness that the cops could not even find the second dead body from the site of the sensation double murder case. But then not.. (full story) | |
| The way out: Cong, BJP need consensus Our Correspondent The political class has decided to bulldoze everything that is prudent in economic policy. While political considerations prevent the powers that be to raise petroleum prices, the desire to grab farmers' votes prods them to torment public sector banks (PS.. (full story) | | |
| Waking up: UPA adopts austerity measures Our Correspondent After four years of unpardonable profligacy and mindless populism, which partially caused the steep price hike in petroleum products, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has woken up to the fact that there is a financial problem. Prime Minist.. (full story) | |
| BSNL should go public Our Correspondent As on other matters, a great deal of confusion also prevails over bringing out an initial public offering (IPO) of the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The came up way back in 2005, but the idea of going public was repudiated by the then telec.. (full story) | | |
| Muslims need to be unequivocal on violence Our Correspondent The Darool-Uloom Deoband 's fatwa against terrorism is indeed a welcome development. "Islam rejects all kinds of unjust violence, breach of peace, bloodshed, murder and plunder and does not allow it in any form," said Habibur Rehman, rector of the 150-yea.. (full story) | |
| Limits of populism: BJP registers big win in Karnataka Our Correspondent The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) victory in Karnataka is significant on many counts. First, and most important from the saffron party's point of view, it strengthens its presence below the Vindhyachal. The party, which was once ridiculed by its detrac.. (full story) | | |
| Original Sin called NREGS Our Correspondent Communists and other opponents of privatization used to call the exercise as 'selling of family silver to pay the grocer's bill.' Privatization went into coma as soon as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government assumed office in May 2004. Thanks t.. (full story) | |
| Lose-lose situation: Populism hits taxpayer; netas don't gain Our Correspondent The farm loan waiver, touted as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's masterstroke in the election year, has failed to deliver at the polling booths. The ruling coalition thought that it was being very clever—adroitly using taxpa.. (full story) | | |
| Patil's faux pas on Sarabjit Our Correspondent In retrospect, one feels grateful to the Leftists for the only good thing they did in the last four years—scuttling Home Minister Shivraj Patil's elevation to presidency. One shudders at the thought of such an incompetent politician's entry into Rashtrapa.. (full story) | |
| Wild-goose chase No please-all rule in farm prices Our Correspondent The good news for the inflation-wary Government is that wheat production in the country has been good and procurement will be 21 million tons this year. "The procurement has already reached 19.8 million tons (MT) and we expect that it would reach 21 MT," .. (full story) | | |
| Cycle of terror Politicians fumble and stumble Our Correspondent The Jaipur blasts have reiterated for the nth time that our politicians have totally failed to do anything to improve national security. Scores of people are slaughtered by bombs planted by terrorists on bicycles, many more are injured—and our leaders do .. (full story) | |
| Delhi HC slams Muslim appeasement Our Correspondent Political parties are fond of using certain buzzwords which reflect their basic ideas. Communists have a penchant for terms like 'pro-people' and 'neo-liberal'; the Congress lays special emphasis on 'inclusiveness' and 'loyalty'; and the Bharatiya Janata .. (full story) | | |
| Enforcing silence Anti-Americanism goes berserk on Bush remark Our Correspondent The champions of liberty have fought for decades the objections raised against free speech. Such objections are raised on grounds related to political correctness, sensitivities of certain groups, etc. Hence the myriad protests against movies, cinema, boo.. (full story) | |
| Ban on futures trading futile Our Correspondent With inflation refusing to relent, the Government's anxiety, frustration and latent control mindset are strengthening by the day. Unsurprisingly, its actions are becoming erratic and hazardous—that is, hazardous for the people and economy of the country. .. (full story) | | |
| Commies dictate all policies Our Correspondent The Left is not satisfied with its hold, which is considerable, over the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government; it wants to increase it further. Whether it is economic policy, foreign affairs or matters related to defence and security, the communis.. (full story) | |
| Raj again stokes parochialism Our Correspondent There is a well-known saying in Hindi: the tail of a dog never gets straightened, regardless of the effort to get it straight. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray is little different from a dog's tail—except that in his case, no effort ha.. (full story) | | |
| Truth prevails: Ramadoss exposed but won't be sacked Our Correspondent The scrapping of the legislation by the Supreme Court to oust P Venugopal has confirmed, if any confirmation was needed, that Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss is a disgrace for the Government. He is what a minister in a modern democracy should not be, fo.. (full story) | |
| BRT has blinded Delhi Govt Our Correspondent If there were a competition to choose the most unresponsive government in India, the Sheila Dikshit regime would win quite easily. For her Government has scaled new peaks in unresponsiveness. First, it was the Blueline menace. Hundreds of deaths, countles.. (full story) | | |
| Mind your business, Ramadoss Our Correspondent Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has again taken upon himself to improve the morals of the nation. After waging a war against smoking, he is getting ready to abolish alcohol. His Ministry has written to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, urging a.. (full story) | |
| Moral police targets IPL Our Correspondent Our politicians have acquired great expertise in creating big issues out of non-issues. This helps them: instead of focusing on their incompetence and worse, people start discussing entirely irrelevant things. Their recent hoax pertains to supposed "obsce.. (full story) | | |
| In the Red: Left influences foreign policy Our Correspondent That the Left has molded the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's economic policy is a well-established fact. The commies have scored another point: they have also greatly influenced the foreign office, especially in the recent past. It was chie.. (full story) | |
| Arjun is determined to undermine IIMs Our Correspondent Having decided to follow the diktats of its unwise ministers, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has once again aborted a move, to hike fees in the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), which was in the right direction. Headed by Arjun Sin.. (full story) | | |
| Deal firmly with Maoist Nepal Our Correspondent Now that a Maoist Nepal has become a reality, our foreign office has to show remarkable deftness and uprightness in dealing with the new regime in Kathmandu. Now there is no doubt about who would head the new government. "I will soon become the head of th.. (full story) | |
| Earlier, Govt pretended to have magic wand Our Correspondent So, the Untied Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has finally acknowledged the limits of state action. Responding to 7.41 per cent inflation for the week ended March 29, a 40-month high, it has accepted there are things it can do nothing about. As Mini.. (full story) | | |
| Inflation rattles UPA Govt Our Correspondent That the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is united in name only was never in doubt. No ideology holds the ruling coalition together; even its functioning is extremely chaotic and confusing, and it is becoming increasingly evident. Consider its response .. (full story) | |
| Red star over Nepal Our Correspondent The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) seems set to form the new government. It would be the first time in history that a communist party will have come to power in a country through elections. Communists did win elections—the first time being in 1959 in K.. (full story) | | |
| Torch relay: Celebrities can't speak the truth Our Correspondent Our celebrities have the feet of clay. Nothing else explains their attitude towards the Olympic torch relay run. The official list announced by the Indian Olympic Association had the names of 70 torch-bearers, all leading figures from various walks of lif.. (full story) | |
| Populism is friend of inflation Our Correspondent After the farm loan waiver, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government was quite bullish about its impact on the forthcoming state and general elections. But the feel-good factor did not last long; it could not have. The threat of inflation came bac.. (full story) | | |
| Sonia trims importance of debate Our Correspondent The most conspicuous feature of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's exhortation to her party members in Uttar Pradesh was the extreme measures that she suggested—exposing the Mayawati regime in the state, a jail bharo agitation and the sensational statement.. (full story) | |
| Advani's antics Our Correspondent Of late, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani seems to have developed a penchant for controversies. About three years ago, he made the famous 'Jinnah statement,' which infuriated the Sangh Parivar and led to his ouster as party president. .. (full story) | | |
| Bellicose China expects India's support Our Correspondent In the ties between India and China, the only thing more startling than New Delhi's pusillanimity is Beijing's audacity and brazenness. As reported in PBD, China has sought India's "understanding" and support for itself over Tibet. Chinese State Councilor.. (full story) | |
| Democracies trying to please China Our Correspondent In the 1930s, it was the great powers of Western Europe, led by Great Britain, which followed the disastrous policy of appeasement to avoid another war. Despite the protestations of Winston Churchill, the British Government did its utmost to keep Hitler's.. (full story) | | |
| A tale of three states Our Correspondent That investment is increasing in India is a truism. In nominal terms, the per capita investment under implementation shot up from Rs 8,450 in December 1997 to Rs 22,669 in December 2007, or 168 per cent increase over the last 10 years; in the last five ye.. (full story) | |
| Right questions, but would Rahul also answer them? Our Correspondent Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Rahul is asking, and urging the youth to ask, the right question: "Youth should ask the question: When there is democracy in poll booth, why does it not exist in political parties?" It is true that such a statement .. (full story) | | |
| Bad ideas rule the roost Our Correspondent In Indian politics, good ideas may or may not become popular, but bad ideas are always a big hit. The Rs 60,000-crore farm loan waiver, announced by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his Budget speech, is one of the worst measures proposed by any governme.. (full story) | |
| Fear of dragon: Brutal China, craven world Our Correspondent These are sad days for those who believe in democracy, individual liberty and cultural autonomy, as China crushes non-violent protests by Tibetans with brute force, killing scores of people and threatening even fiercer retaliation against the protesters. .. (full story) | | |
| Punjab's woes: Economic policy needs drastic change Our Correspondent The Punjab Budget has highlighted the fact that the political class in one of the most prosperous states has badly faltered in economic policy. When the Rs 31,635-crore Budget has a fiscal deficit of Rs 4,465 crore and revenue deficit of Rs 1,000 crore, n.. (full story) | |
| Appeasing China Our Correspondent Opposition members in the Lok Sabha slam the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government for its cowardly response to the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. But the Government has stuck to its pusillanimity. Look who is impressed. China is certainly pleased. "C.. (full story) | | |
| Govt appeasing mullahs on Taslima Our Correspondent Islamic fundamentalists are once again getting active to enforce their retrograde agenda. Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has become their favorite whipping girl. The latest is the campaign to oust the author who is already in exile; they want her visa.. (full story) | |
| Debate, RIP Our Correspondent Once upon a time, we had a Parliament in which debates were held, where honorable members would blast ministers and the treasury benches would listen with patience. Those were the days, the days when the important issues of the day were discussed, when th.. (full story) | | |
| Murderous mobs, cowardly Railways Our Correspondent In his Railway Budget speech, Lalu Prasad Yadav said, "Each year we have progressively raised the bar based on our own successes... We are taking the Indian Railways to unprecedented heights... It is for this reason that Indian Railways has received accla.. (full story) | |
| Outrageous demand: OBC MPs for quotas in judiciary Our Correspondent That there is nobody in Indian politics to stem the spiral of populism became evident from the response of the political class to the Government's farm loan waiver: not a single Member of Parliament has, in principle, raised voice against the waiver. It i.. (full story) | | |
| Welfarism eclipses security concerns Our Correspondent It is a truism that internal security is a fundamental duty of any government. But such is the tyranny of welfarism that the powers that be seem to have forgotten this fact. So, in her address to Parliament inaugurating the Budget session, President Prati.. (full story) | |
| Forgotten hero: Justice Khanna passes away Our Correspondent Former Supreme Court justice Hans Raj Khanna died early this week. That most newspapers buried the news in inside pages speaks about their insouciance towards a great champion of freedom and democracy. The media Brahmins did not realise that it was becaus.. (full story) | | |
| Shourie vindicated: But the real victor is Left Our Correspondent The Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI's) clean chit to former disinvestment minister Arun Shourie on the sale of two Centaur hotels exposes the absurdity and groundlessness of the Left's charges against him and the privatisation process per se. Accor.. (full story) | |
| Spiral of populism: Using taxpayers' money for votes Our Correspondent A statesman, they say, thinks about the next generation; a politician, about the next election. Finance Minister P Chidambaram surely is no statesman; unfortunately for the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), he is not even a good politician. For if.. (full story) | | |
| Welfarism eclipses security concerns Our Correspondent It is a truism that internal security is a fundamental duty of any government. But such is the tyranny of welfarism that the powers that be seem to have forgotten this fact. So, in her address to Parliament inaugurating the Budget session, President Prati.. (full story) | |
| Blind to jihad Our Correspondent The arrest of Mohammad Yahya Kammakutty, a techie hailing from Kozhikode in Kerala and working in Bangalore, has once again highlighted the penetration of jihadi elements in our society. Although it is not the first time that a white-collared, well-educat.. (full story) | | |
| Naxalites advance, India retreats Our Correspondent Insouciant of the ominous spread of Naxalites, the political class in New Delhi is busy preparing for the oncoming state and general elections. Winning polls is the summum bonum of their political existence; not for our netas the growing inf.. (full story) | |
| Justified activism Our Correspondent For the nth time, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee has asked the judiciary not to become encroach upon the jurisdictions of the executive and the legislature. "Any efforts by the judiciary to take on itself the onerous responsibility of the governance.. (full story) | | |
| Dialect-ics: Raj inspires Bengal CPM Our Correspondent As if Raj Thackeray's rabid parochialism were not enough, Bengali chauvinism is making its obnoxious presence felt. Abdur Rezzak Mollah, a senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) Minister in the state Cabinet, said, "Meros (Marwaris) are developers and .. (full story) | |
| Liberty triumphs in Pak Our Correspondent The mandate in Pakistan is not definite in the sense that no political party has got a clear majority; yet, it is categorical in its rejection of President Pervez Musharraf. It is prudent on the part of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Pakistan M.. (full story) | | |
| Blind to excellence: AICTE doesn't see good B-schools Our Correspondent That education is one sector that has been bypassed by reforms is old hat. Not a day passes when the entrenched incompetence and pigheadedness in the system do not get highlighted in some way or the other. Ineptitude is widespread at all levels. Consider .. (full story) | |
| NREGS failure is inherent Our Correspondent Now that there are reports about the spectacular failure of the national rural guarantee employment scheme (NREGS), with even the Comptroller & Auditor General finding fault with the mammoth exercise in populism, the self-appointed champions of the poor h.. (full story) | | |
| Sanctimoniousness stifles Sania Our Correspondent Normally, sportspersons look forward to games in their own countries. Tennis star Sania Mirza, however, is an exception. Playing in India has become a nightmarish experience for the 21-year-old star, thanks to a variety of pathologies afflicting the natio.. (full story) | |
| Goonda Raj: Top cop invites MNS chief Our Correspondent Once upon a time, cops chased criminals and threw them behind the bars. Now, policemen invite the people who are accused of inciting mass violence to their parties. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray runs his violent campaign against nor.. (full story) | | |
| Taxing times: Govt reluctance to reduce rates Our Correspondent Now that the Government recognises considerable buoyancy in revenue collections, there is a good case for substantial cuts in direct and indirect tax rates. However, Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (EAC) Chairman C Rangarajan says, "We should k.. (full story) | |
| CPM mindlessly berates Israel Our Correspondent The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has made it amply clear in the last few months that its tryst with mendacity is total and unqualified. Its views on domestic issues are testimony to its commitment to dishonesty and deceit; its stand on the various m.. (full story) | | |
| Govt is unduly slammed for Sensex crash Our Correspondent Politicians are frequently denounced by all and sundry. While most of the time the denunciation is justified, sometimes they are also slammed for the sins they did not commit. The criticism hurled at the Government in general and Finance Minister P Chidam.. (full story) | |
| Red torpor: Bird flu strikes in Bengal Our Correspondent The spread of bird flu in West Bengal highlights a couple of facts. First, government machinery suffers from a number of diseases including paralysis and sclerosis. If the administration cannot properly react to a grave situation, if an emergency does not.. (full story) | | |
| Left abandoned: Workers favor non-Left unions Our Correspondent One doesn't know how the apparatchiks of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) would react to the news that the trade union affiliated to their party, Citu, is losing strength. Strange things are happening on the trade union front—that is, strange from t.. (full story) | |
| No Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai Our Correspondent Biblical wisdom has it that the Ethiopian cannot change his colour, nor the leopard his spots. Neither can China give up its imperial pretensions—the Bible's authors could have added. For this country has got a queer hangover—imperial hangover. Now, one c.. (full story) | | |
| Fraud in World Bank health schemes Our Correspondent The fraud exposed by the World Bank in Indian healthcare programmes it funded not only shows the inadequacies in the delivery system but also tarnishes our country's image. "A Detailed Implementation Review launched by the World Bank in 2006 and supported.. (full story) | |
| Scramble for Bharat Ratna Our Correspondent In India, especially in Indian politics, success is often equated with greatness, and greatness with winning awards. This is the reason that many people believe that demanding, arranging or extracting an award for their idols would bestow greatness on the.. (full story) | | |
| When small is big: Tata deserves all the plaudits Our Correspondent It is not very often that businessmen laud the launch of a rival's product. But then it is not very often that an Indian magnate unveils a car that is appreciated by rivals and noticed by the global automobile sector. Even if God is unkind to Ratan Tata a.. (full story) | |
| Goa SEZs go Our Correspondent It is not clear as yet whether the protests against 12 special economic zones (SEZs) in Goa are a genuine expression of the views and feelings of the people or they are like most other anti-industry campaigns in which rent-seekers, Luddites and vested int.. (full story) | | |
| Momma's boy: Bilawal should shun realpolitik Our Correspondent The way Benazir Bhutto planned her succession, and her husband Asif Ali Zardari executed it, underlines the deep feudal roots of Pakistani politics. Political dynasties are not unknown to India, but they are not so forthrightly promoted in our country. Co.. (full story) | |
| Incredible India: Molestations disgraces nation Our Correspondent Mumbai Police Commissioner DN Jadhav's reaction to the outrage over the molestation of two girls being by a mob outside JW Marriott Hotel at Juhu is, to put it mildly, disgraceful. He has not only disgraced himself but the entire police department of his .. (full story) | | |
| CRPF men die, politicians bicker Our Correspondent The daring attack by jihadis on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp, killing eight men of the force, has evoked the usual response from our powers-that-be. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said: "I condemn today's attack on the CRPF Group Centre a.. (full story) | |
| Lethal rhetoric: Quota politics recoils in Rajasthan Our Correspondent Having sold the dangerous and divisive idea of caste-based reservations for decades, now politicians are trying to avoid the ugly consequences. The consequences are seen everywhere; the most prominent and topical are in Rajasthan and Assam. In May this ye.. (full story) | | |
| Victim as villain: Saudi practices are unacceptable Our Correspondent Political correctness, a disease afflicting liberal democracies, is not only becoming endemic but also more virulent. Otherwise, there would have been much greater indignation in the world over Saudi Arabia's treatment of women in general and its 200-lash.. (full story) | |
| Advantage jihadi: Bhutto's murder may boost Islamists Our Correspondent Al-Qaeda is said to have claimed the responsibility of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. In any case, the jihadi imprint was quite prominent in modus operandi of the former Pakistani prime minister's murder. Official confirmation is yet to come, but it woul.. (full story) | | |
| Confused Govt: Ministries work at cross purposes Our Correspondent The left hand not knowing what the right one is doing—this is how the Government is functioning. While some ministries are working to open up the economy, many others are working keenly to not only stall economic reforms but further strengthen the outdate.. (full story) | |
| Sickening silence: Govt ignores outrage in Malaysia Our Correspondent Abandoned by the Indian Government, supported by the American Government—this is the story of the Hindus of Malaysia. For it is Washington, and not New Delhi, that has backed the five leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) who are agitating ag.. (full story) | | |
| Judicious activism Our Correspondent It seems that the obituaries of public interest litigation (PIL) were a bit premature. Close on the heels of a warning against judicial overreach by a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan has made it clear PILs will continue.. (full story) | |
| Patkar's paroxysms: She wants to jeopardise Posco project Our Correspondent There is a story—apparently apocryphal—about a professional revolutionary who met with a shipwreck. Somehow, he managed to swim to an island, but collapsed because of exhaustion. The natives took him to a house. When he came to his senses, he asked about .. (full story) | | |
| Hyper-activism: EC attracts insinuations Our Correspondent If there are insinuations and accusations against the Election Commission (EC), the only people responsible for this are the mandarins in Nirvachan Bhawan. In their eagerness to micromanage polls and monitor campaigning, they have made a Constitutional bo.. (full story) | |
| Cheers! SC allows women bartenders Our Correspondent The convivial and the lovers of liberty can raise a toast to the Supreme Court which struck down an archaic law, thus removing all restrictions in the path of women becoming bartenders in the national Capital. At the same time, moralisers and the enemies .. (full story) | | |
| Navy chief calls Russia's bluff Our Correspondent It was typical of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government to maintain silence over the unjust demands made by Russia regarding the purchase of the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov. Moscow sought $1.2 billion more for the aircraft carrier, more t.. (full story) | |
| Sack Aiyar: Mega rally would be a disaster Our Correspondent If somebody decided to find the most incompetent member of the Manmohan Singh Cabinet, Sports and Panchayati Raj Minister Manishankar Aiyar will be a serious contender. He ensured that New Delhi was not chosen to host Asiad 2014. Then he came up with a da.. (full story) | | |
| Gogoi needs to look beyond Our Correspondent Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has finally admitted to the lapses on the part of his Government during the Adivasi rally in Guwahati a week ago, in which one person died and more than 250 people were injured. What was more worrisome was the spread of vi.. (full story) | |
| Labour pains: Left hurts interests of SSIs Our Correspondent The Left has done it again. It has stalled a small change in the outdated labour laws, the change that would made a big difference to small-scale industries (SSIs). The Government wants to introduce the Labour Laws (Exemption from furnishing returns and M.. (full story) | | |
| Good riddance: BRPSE chairman resigns Our Correspondent One of the bad consequences of the Left's sudden leap to relevance after the 2004 elections was the resurrection of most discredited ideas. The public sector, a drain on the exchequer and a liability for the economy, abruptly became a favoured child. The .. (full story) | |
| In hot water Our Correspondent The water of Punjab is said to have such properties as to keep digestion in order and support a good body constitution. This is the reason that the term ' Paani Punjab ka' entered common parlance; it even found a mention in a song of Prem Pujari in the ea.. (full story) | | |
| Paid in the… Our Correspondent The past is catching up fast with the Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist). At Nandigram, all the pathologies nurtured, perpetrated and perpetuated by the mainstream commies agglomerated and burst like a nuclear bomb; not only the des.. (full story) | |
| Terrorising India Our Correspondent A conspicuous, and unprecedented, feature of the bomb blasts in UP courts was that it was across three cities that the jihadis were able to synchronise their attacks. There have been serial earlier too, but it was the first time that the terrorists struck.. (full story) | | |
| House of cards: Selja has quixotic plan for poor Our Correspondent Our political masters specialize in finding solutions that are almost invariably worse than the problems. The latest is Union Housing Minister Kumari Selja's quixotic plan to provide houses to the urban poor. She has asked state governments and the local .. (full story) | |
| Serial betrayer Our Correspondent It seems that Janata Dal (Secular) president and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda has started relishing the political drama in Bangalore—more so because he himself is the director of the theatre of the absurd that has shown Indian politicians in the da.. (full story) | | |
| Nation of idolaters: Manoj overreacts on OSO Our Correspondent It is testimony to Hindi film superstar Shah Rukh Khan's maturity and magnanimity that an unwarranted controversy has died fast. No sooner than he came to know about yesteryear actor Manoj Kumar's objections to his parody in the latest blockbuster, Om Sha.. (full story) | |
| Black out: UP enforces dress code for ODI spectators Our Correspondent That our administrators have little regard for the civil liberties and democratic rights of citizens is a truism. During the one-day international between India and Pakistan in Kanpur on Sunday, the truism appeared in an ugly form: the local administratio.. (full story) | | |
| From Vietnam to Nandigram Our Correspondent Finally, our intellectuals have realised that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is a party which patronises goons and condones violence against poor people. It took a Nandigram for them to see the CPM's real character. They led a rally, in which over.. (full story) | |
| Karat's folly: Refuses to facts of history Our Correspondent Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat is enraged that US President George W Bush compared Russian leader Lenin (1870-1924) with the likes of Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler. The CPM boss gave up the veneer of suavity and dece.. (full story) | | |
| Jungle law: Left wants to ruin forests Our Correspondent The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's inglorious rule may end in 2009—or earlier, if the Left decides so—but its lethal legacy will continue for a much longer period. The passing of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (.. (full story) | |
| Dead ideas walk: Nandigram remains on boil Our Correspondent Nandigram has become emblematic of not only the twenty first century's struggles against industrialisation but also of the Left's inability to extricate itself from the rotten shibboleths of its own ideology. Nandigram is one of the sites where huge proje.. (full story) | | |
| Left's limitless duplicity Our Correspondent It is beyond the ken of human intelligence to understand the minds of Indian politicians, for they don't mean what they say and seldom say what they mean. Worse, they end up making mutually contradictory statements in a short time—and vociferously arguing.. (full story) | |
| Judicial activism? Our Correspondent During the election campaign of 1989, the Congress came up with a query to the electorate: 'How many prime ministers a country can have?' The context: the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress was battling a newly cobbled up Janata Dal and a resurgent Bharatiya Janat.. (full story) | | |
| PR for Beijing: CPM serves China's interests Our Correspondent The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has once again exposed itself as an outfit whose sympathies always lie with China, even when there is a conflict of interests between New Delhi and Beijing (which is quite often, for China sees India as a hurdle in t.. (full story) | |
| Higher education: Sickness sans cure Our Correspondent It is not very often that our political masters call a spade a spade. So, when Human Resource Minister Arjun Singh calls higher education as a "sick child," he should be commended for his honesty in at least recognising that such sickness does exist. "Hig.. (full story) | | |
| Revolt from below: Ration riots rot in CPM-run system Our Correspondent Leftwing historians are fond of using the term 'revolt from below' to denote the small rebellions by peasants, tribals, etc, against any rule or system. That is, to describe localised events which are often ignored or downplayed by mainstream scholars. Mo.. (full story) | |
| Brand Nawab: Politicos sustain Bluelines on roads Our Correspondent Last time, the word 'Nawab' was used for a Delhite was in the context of cricket. Virendra Sehwag, hailing from a suburb of the national Capital, was called the Nawab of Najafgarh for his swashbuckling batting and helping his team scale new heights. Now, .. (full story) | | |
| Divided house: Renuka crusades against SEZs Our Correspondent India's ruling coalition is called the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). Its functionaries, however, often give the impression that it is neither united nor progressive nor an alliance; it appears to be a motley crowd of capricious, selfish politicos who.. (full story) | |
| Message to media: Govt shows intolerance on Red FM Our Correspondent There is something sinister about the ban on Red FM. This is not to say that there was nothing wrong in the derogatory remarks the channel's radio jockey made about the Gurkhas; but the Government is using the incident to intimidate the media. The alleged.. (full story) | | |
| In bad taste: DMK, Left indulge in judiciary-bashing Our Correspondent The howl of criticism of the Supreme Court's warning to dismiss the Tamil Nadu Government is a grim reminder of the perversity of depth public. The apex court was absolutely right in scolding the Tamil Nadu Government of staying its bandh over the Sethysa.. (full story) | |
| Unbridled populism: Rahul expands scope of NREGS Our Correspondent What a charade it was! The Crown Prince waits patiently to take charge of the country and redeem the unfortunate subjects. The Queen Mother ensures that the Crown Prince begins with a bang in his new role. Soon after getting the responsibility of party of.. (full story) | | |
| Maya's perverse move: 1,000 Reliance Fresh workers sacked Our Correspondent The axis of evil comprising political manipulators, mindless Luddites and racketeers of various hues has succeeded in jeopardising the prospects of a most promising sector, retail, in UP. The immediate casualties are about a thousand Reliance Fresh employ.. (full story) | |
| Dhoni's attitude is victor Our Correspondent At a time when Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his team mates are adulated all over the country after winning Twenty20 World Cup, the young players and the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) take the victory in their stride, as they should take huge se.. (full story) | | |
| Cess-pool: Egregious move to raise resources Our Correspondent Many in the political class believe that the petroleum sector is an infinitely abundant source of funds. Cash-rich public sector undertakings (PSUs) in the sector are often used to promote politically-motivated projects; their money is siphoned off for va.. (full story) | |
| Even PSUs have to bribe officials Our Correspondent The expose that public sector Shipping Corporation of India Ltd (SCI) admitted of paying bribes to customs and excise officers, in ports across the country in order to get its shipments cleared in a timely manner, is not shocking. In a modern democracy, t.. (full story) | | |
| Blithe spirit: Cricket at its best Our Correspondent There are cricket matches that get etched on the collective psyche of a nation. One is the 1983 World Cup final that India won in 1983—the pleasant feeling of becoming world champions, the disbelief of defeating the mighty West Indians, the image of Kapil.. (full story) | |
| Montek pleases communists Our Correspondent With champions like Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, liberalisation needs no detractors. In his recent comments, he has tried to show that it is the people, and not the cantankerous communists, who are responsible for the opposi.. (full story) | | |
| Impotent populism: ATR cannot win Muslim votes Our Correspondent The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's decision to table an action taken report (ATR) on the Sachar Committee's recommendations by listing the steps taken to ameliorate the social condition of Muslims smacks of the grossest form of Muslim appe.. (full story) | |
| Treason: Politicos patronise jihadis from Bangladesh Our Correspondent In the wake of the jihadi attack on Parliament, a few people in Delhi were arrested for renting out their houses to the terrorists who masterminded and executed the attack. Will the authorities adopt the same unforgiving attitude towards the politicians i.. (full story) | | |
| Incidents of lynching shame us Our Correspondent Uma Khurana, a woman teacher of Delhi-based Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, is alleged to have been involved in the flesh trade—and an attempt is made, and televised, to lynch her. After to a minor altercation, a 10-year-old boy is tied to horse and dragged in.. (full story) | |
| Sub-quotas for Muslims will cause backlash Our Correspondent Even as the judiciary discourages the political class to expand the scope of birth-based quotas, our political masters can never have enough of reservations. They continue to believe that that more reservations would get them dividends in elections; they .. (full story) | | |
| Joining the issue: India Inc supports nuclear deal Our Correspondent It is not very often that India Inc takes a firm stand on any controversial issue; even when its own stakes are involved, it tries to keep contentious issues at an arm's length as far as possible. For instance, our businessmen's response to the proposed q.. (full story) | |
| Middle class is angry with Reds Our Correspondent The Left is in the firing line of the middle class. Communists were never a favourite of the middle class; suddenly the latter has realised that these people are bad, very bad. The Indo-US nuclear deal proved to be the catalyst to arouse the people like u.. (full story) | | |
| Missing girls: NRIs indulge in female feticide Our Correspondent That high per capital income and general prosperity do not necessarily lead to a good life becomes evident from, among other things, from the recent report that non-resident Indians (NRIs) also indulge in female feticide. According to a newspaper report, .. (full story) | |
| Nuclear Nandigram Our Correspondent The Red charade has gone so far that it has assumed a life of its own—in the same fashion as it did in the case of Singur and, more fiercely, in Nandigram. It is a curious phenomenon: the rank and file of communist parties and the fellow travelers have re.. (full story) | | |
| Maya for poor: Quotas may lead to de-industrialisation Our Correspondent The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati should have remembered this adage. Even if it is assumed that her move to offer incentives and concession to the private sector 30 per cent quota voluntarily is the resu.. (full story) | |
| Reds want Israeli FDI in Bengal, oppose bilateral ties Our Correspondent In Leftist mythology, Israel is the embodiment of all that is bad and ugly in the world. Jews are synonymous with big finance and global capitalism. Our comrades are fond of telling us that they are the people, who control banking and the corporate world .. (full story) | | |
| Intoxicant of people Our Correspondent One of the most quoted of Karl Marx's statements is: "It [religion] is the opium of the people." When he wrote this (1843), opium was an important medicine. It was used as a painkiller, palliative or sedative as also a cure for number of diseases, includi.. (full story) | |
| Politicians wanted Madani free Our Correspondent People's Democratic Party chairman and Islamic fundamentalist Abdul Naser Mahdani's acquittal is a shot in the arm of fundamentalists in not just Kerala but all over the country. It was indeed a court of law that has acquitted him but the question is was .. (full story) | | |
| Fanatics attack Taslima Nasreen Our Correspondent The attack on noted Bangladeshi novelist Taslima Nasreen in Hyderabad by activists of Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) underlines the audacity of Islamists and the growing anti-liberal climate of opinion. Audacious and brazen certainly the attack was, car.. (full story) | |
| Patently wrong Our Correspondent The Madras High Court's rejection of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis' challenge to a provision in the Indian Patents Act is a fillip to the wide array of anti-business activists—and a setback to innovation, intellectual property rights and the sectors.. (full story) | | |
| More controls can't tackle rural distress Our Correspondent You can trust the powers that be to offer the worst solution to every problem the nation is facing. Consider the grave issue of farmer suicides. After thousands of farmers taking their own lives and many governments making myriad promises, the Reserve Ban.. (full story) | |
| Victory of partisan interests Our Correspondent Pratibha Patil's victory in the bitterly fought presidential elections proves, if proof was ever required, two things. First, the political class is completely obsessed with party and partisan interests; it cannot and does not want to see what is good for.. (full story) | | |
| Content code is censorship by backdoor Our Correspondent Even after our political masters adopted liberalization and allowed the opening up of the electronic media, their command economy instincts remain as strong as ever. They still want to control and regulate everything—from agriculture to the public sector .. (full story) | |
| Can Buddha see the whole truth? Our Correspondent Communism may blind its followers to see things as they are, but such is the awesomeness of the reality that they often gain partial vision. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is among the very few communists who have seen a ray of the tru.. (full story) | | |
| Gimmicks as governance: Renuka's stunts on HIV/AIDS Our Correspondent Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury believes that stunts can be passed off as good governance and silly remarks can be peddled as oratory. On the heels of her proposal that pregnancies should be registered has come the feminist-appeasing.. (full story) | |
| Jihad, Naxalism arrest growth Our Correspondent In the last few years, economy and politics have followed curiously different paths. In the economic sphere, it has mostly been a happy story: 8 per cent growth rate on a sustainable basis; a confident business class, which is making foreign acquisitions;.. (full story) | | |
| Aborting liberty: Govt wants to enter bedrooms Our Correspondent How much intrusive our politicians can get! They want to know when women become pregnant, and would like the pregnancy to be registered. All in the name of protecting the girl child. According to a news report, the Government is planning to make it mandat.. (full story) | |
| The whirlwind: Lal Masjid flare-up was inevitable Our Correspondent For they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind. This Biblical wisdom was certainly lost on those who matter, and mattered, in Pakistan. The storming of Lal Masjid by Pakistani troops—leading to the death of more than 100 people, including 12 commandoe.. (full story) | | |
| Ubiquitous jihad: Now, PM can sleep a bit Our Correspondent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was losing sleep over the plight of the parents of UK terror suspects. It appears that one of the parents did not deserve the Prime Ministerial sympathy. According to a news story, alleged Glasgow bomber Kafeel Ahmed's mother.. (full story) | |
| Man of character: Permanently Young Turk Our Correspondent The epithet of 'Young Turk' was used for former prime minister Chandra Shekhar in the late 1960s when he, along with a few others, sympathised with the socialistic leanings of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi. The epithet, which is synonymous with 'r.. (full story) | | |
| Politics by hint: PM alludes to Muslim appeasement Our Correspondent What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. This is how Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein summarised his magnum opus, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Since the benighted arena of I.. (full story) | |
| Targeting retail: Kerala Left bans big chains Our Correspondent You can depend on the Left to do the silliest of things. This time it is Kerala where the communists have struck. The target is big retail. Some time ago, the commies had demanded a ban on retail majors. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) had demanded.. (full story) | | |
| Protecting Patil: Weird arguments to defend her Our Correspondent Unite Progressive Alliance (UPA) leaders and their supporting communist parties are using a lot of imagination to defend their Presidential candidate Pratibha Patil. It is another matter that they always look unconvincing. Few, if any, believe in the argu.. (full story) | |
| Unlimited populism: 30-member library has 715 employees Our Correspondent While politicians and opinion makers are busy promoting the spurious drugs of empowerment and social justice, something as critical as governance is seldom discussed in the quarters that matter. One need not be a political scientist to know that governanc.. (full story) | | |
| Bad vibes: Let PSU bosses decide Our Correspondent In a country where ultra-Victorian morality pervades, a little imagination on the part of public sector Hindustan Latex Ltd (HLL) has, not unexpectedly, raised the heckles of moralisers and prudes. Leading the charge against the so-called vibrator condom .. (full story) | |
| Political sector banks: Politicians try to ruin P&SB Our Correspondent Punjab & Sind Bank chairman R.P. Singh should be lauded for the courage he has shown by taking on the five non-official directors (NODs) on the board of the public sector bank. The five NODs are Congress party members—and that is their only qualification... (full story) | | |
| Singh grounded: But Advani, Atal also responsible Our Correspondent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh finally had to face the heat, with senior leader and his predecessor L.K. Advani calling for an "honest introspection and self-critical analysis" of the election debacle in Uttar Pradesh. Addressing the.. (full story) | |
| Myth exposed: 'Jobless growth' does not exist Our Correspondent So, the charge of 'jobless growth' was little more than fiction, a figment of the imagination of anti-liberalisation crusaders who come dime a dozen in our country. A study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a g.. (full story) | | |
| Licence to kill: Proposed licensing of big retail Our Correspondent The alacrity with which the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government responds to the suggestions of the Left is as astonishing as it is depressing. Soon after the Communist Party of India (Marxist) made the absurd demand that big retail should be lice.. (full story) | |
| Dread of knight: Freedom of expression is sacrosanct Our Correspondent The knighting of British author Salman Rushdie has once again bared the fault-lines between the West and Islam. It is to the credit of Great Britain that it has stuck to its decision of honouring the controversial Muslim author who, according to many Isla.. (full story) | | |
| NAMby-pamby: Rice is right on non-alignment Our Correspondent We, the people of India, have become so accustomed to humbug that we have stopped relying on our sense perception and common sense. Otherwise, we would have recognised that with the demise of the Soviet Union the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) lost whatever r.. (full story) | |
| Red star over Nepal Our Correspondent The United Nations' involvement in Nepal is indeed welcome. The world body will soon commence the second phase of monitoring of Maoist army personnel, ensuring that no minors are serving there. "This is a crucial stage of the implementation of the Agreeme.. (full story) | | |
| Indian staff blackmails all; Govt bows to them Our Correspondent The Government's tough stand towards the strike by the employees of state-run carrier Indian gave way to appeasement. It seems to have decided to allow the wrongdoers to go unpunished. The Civil Aviation Ministry's decision to reinstate the 27 suspended e.. (full story) | |
| Indian staff blackmails all; Govt bows to them Our Correspondent The Government's tough stand towards the strike by the employees of state-run carrier Indian gave way to appeasement. It seems to have decided to allow the wrongdoers to go unpunished. The Civil Aviation Ministry's decision to reinstate the 27 suspended e.. (full story) | | |
| Reds want to kill big retail Our Correspondent If some Hindu obscurantist were to seek legalisation of the reprehensible practices like untouchability and satee, he would be severely condemned, even by Hindu groups. But such is the intellectual hegemony of the Left that it can get away by making the m.. (full story) | |
| Sowing the Winds Our Correspondent It was the legendary economist Keynes who said, “In the long run we are all dead,” but those who wholeheartedly and unerringly believe in this future-hating maxim are found in Indian politics. Quota mania can be understood in the Keynesian context. | | |
| Kerala commies' roadblocks Our Correspondent As if inefficiency, red tape, procedural rigours and corruption were not enough, the Left Front Government in Kerala has devised another means to check road-building. It does not want the collection of toll. In a confrontationist move that can have grave .. (full story) | |
| Nooyi's retrospective wisdom Our Correspondent How we wish to have access to the time machine! We could travel to the future, know the future, thus giving a lie to the adage 'Que Sera Sera.' And, of course, could travel backwards, correcting our mistakes and changing the course of the present and the .. (full story) | | |
| Virulent politics: Mandalisation infests Rajasthan Our Correspondent The quota violence in Rajasthan does not seem to be a sporadic eruption of anger and frustration among the Gujjar community; the thing was building up for a long time and it is unlikely to subside easily. The Gujjars' campaign for the Scheduled Tribe (ST).. (full story) | |
| Politics of vendetta Our Correspondent In the recent past, politics in many states has become vindictive and dirty. This is not to say that politicians in states in earlier times were angels, but they fought in the political arena with some decorum. Nowadays, however, political rivalry often a.. (full story) | | |
| Confessions of UPA functionaries Our Correspondent Confessed faults are half-mended—this is Scottish wisdom. So, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram admit to basic flaws in governance, one would expect that genuine corrective measures are on the way. Singh said recently,.. (full story) | |
| UPA's 3 years: Compromises galore Our Correspondent The greatest achievement of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government is that… well, it is still there. The regime, about whose survival a great deal of skepticism was expressed when it started its innings, has completed three years. Winston Church.. (full story) | | |
| Anti-Posco protests are motivated Our Correspondent There is something sinister in the protests that are being carried out against the Korean steel major Posco's project in Orissa. One would have expected that everybody in the State would welcome the company that has pledged to invest $12 billion, t.. (full story) | |
| UP-hill task ahead Our Correspondent The most conspicuous feature of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati's successful strategy in Uttar Pradesh is said to be her insistence on the inclusion of upper castes in politics. But the successful strategy is symptomatic of a fundamental change t.. (full story) | | |
| Sibling rivalry: Dangerous for others Our Correspondent The rivalry between Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi's sons has claimed three lives. Fights among brothers are as old as mankind. Be it the Aryavarta of the Mahabharata era (Duryodhan's intransigence) or the vicissitudes in the Biblical times (Cain's .. (full story) | |
| Right is might in France Our Correspondent By electing conservative Nicolas Sarkozy as President, France has given itself a chance of revival. Technically, his victory spells continuity, for it is the Right that has been ruling the country for 12 years; but, practically, it is Sarkozy who promises.. (full story) | | |
| Mandira's misery Our Correspondent With sentimentalism spreading like plague, intolerance in the society is growing by the day. Hardly a day passes when some publicity-hungry moron or outfit does not deprecate some movie, TV programme, book or celebrity on the ground that it/he/she "hurt t.. (full story) | |
| Unnecessary evil: Karnataka discriminates against women Our Correspondent Classical liberal philosophers viewed government as a "necessary evil." It is necessary, they argued, for the maintenance of law and order, defending borders, and running administration. And it is evil, because politicians of hues (Rightist, Leftist, cent.. (full story) | | |
| Warrants against Gere, Shetty are idiotic Our Correspondent Prudery and illiberal cantankerousness triumphed when a Jaipur magistrate ordered the arrest of Hollywood actor Richard Gere for kissing Hindi film star Shilpa Shetty. A local advocate Poonam Chand Bhandari had filed a case against the celebrities. The ad.. (full story) | |
| Lalu school of thought on Emergency Our Correspondent It was former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who used the term 'coalition dharma.' Often it meant succumbing to the pressures of small allies and indulging in Muslim appeasement. Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav is following in his footsteps. For h.. (full story) | | |
| Aiyar wins, Delhi loses Our Correspondent Our worst fears have been confirmed: Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has succeeded in torpedoing India's bid to host the 2014 Asian Games in Delhi. While the entire nation is disappointed, he is not even bothered about the setback. The Indian Ol.. (full story) | |
| Whipping couriers to save a govt deptt Our Correspondent The ingenuity of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government to devise ways to vitiate the business environment is amazing; it is matched only by their capacity to make the life of the common man miserable. The latest threat to business and aam aadmi com.. (full story) | | |
| Big is beautiful: Corporates are helping farmers Our Correspondent Big Indian and multinational corporations entering retail and farm trade would ruin peasants, wipe out small traders, monopolize the market, and ultimately manipulate the prices of agricultural goods. Almost everyday we are bombarded with such messages th.. (full story) | |
| Jingoism unlimited Our Correspondent Sanctimoniousness scales a new peak every day in our country. As if Karnataka's politicians have solved the problems in their state, they have started enforcing patriotism and Kannada pride. What should be the internal matter of a private company h.. (full story) | | |
| Terrible Future: Congress should rein in Rahul Our Correspondent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the people of UP that Congress MP Rahul Gandhi is their "future." At an election rally, Singh said, "Rahul Gandhi is your future. He is sweating it out for you. Only one chance is needed to make this state a new Uttar Pr.. (full story) | |
| EC's overreach Our Correspondent The mandate of the Election Commission is to conduct free and fair polls. Since the days of Chief Election Commissioner TN Session, it has asserted its authority and, on the whole, has carried out its duties to satisfaction. In the last few years, however.. (full story) | | |
| Ignore CITU on SEZs Our Correspondent The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is veering towards the strategy that offence is the best defence. On the back-foot over the misdeeds of its cadre at Nandigram, the party has decided to resume its role as chief protestors. And what issue can be more.. (full story) | |
| Pleasant surprise: Govt has done well by defreezing SEZs Our Correspondent The Government's decision to defreeze progress on special economic zones (SEZs) has come as a pleasant surprise. Pleasant, for it required moral courage and political astuteness to continue with a good economic policy in the face of communists' hostility;.. (full story) | | |
| CPM blames all but itself for Nandigram Our Correspondent It was about two centuries ago that the nationalist phrase, 'Our country, right or wrong!', gained currency. "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." Naval commander Stephen D.. (full story) | |
| Poverty of policy: Posco impasse hurts Orissa Our Correspondent India has been called a rich land inhabited by poor people. For the country has been endowed with huge natural and human resources, yet a large number of people live below the poverty line and the per capita income is a fraction of what many Asian countri.. (full story) | | |
| In bad taste: CPM's attacks high court Our Correspondent Offence, they say, is the best form of defence. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has started believing in this dictum; its bellicosity is increasing by the day. On Saturday, it scaled new heights when Left Front chairman and CPM secretary Biman Bose.. (full story) | |
| It's not cricket Our Correspondent The favorite pastime of the nation today is to indulge in the castigation of the Indian team, the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) and anything or anybody associated with the game. This goes along with endless discussions in drawing rooms, new.. (full story) | | |
| Bank unions overreach the mandate Our Correspondent Public sector bank (PSB) unions continue to live in the pre-liberalization era. And they want the government to accept their antediluvian views; otherwise, they would resort to their arm-twisting ways. They have requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to .. (full story) | |
| Rahul is a bigmouth Our Correspondent Balancing various (and often conflicting) factors and managing contradictions are essential parts of realpolitik. For the Congress, however, the incompatibilities and contradictions are becoming too conspicuous to pass off as routine. A couple of statemen.. (full story) | | |
| Because populism involves us all Our Correspondent The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), like most political parties and others sections of the society, has severely criticized the Budget. But, unfortunately, the criticism has been ritualistic. Finance Minister P Chidambaram is right in saying that the BJP's .. (full story) | |
| Public sector baffles powers that be Our Correspondent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent address to the Conference of Chief Executives of Public Enterprises was as at odds with thinking in some sections of his own government. He lauded public enterprises (PEs) for their "competitiveness." He said, "It is.. (full story) | | |
| Unwarranted: Global body sermonises India Our Correspondent The capacity of professional protestors to indulge in humbug is indeed stupendous. Consider the unsolicited advice a group of international human rights organisations has given to the Indian Government. It has urged New Delhi to take "immediate steps" to .. (full story) | |
| Eliminate Naxals Our Correspondent The mass slaughter of policemen and their auxiliaries by Naxalites in Chhattisgarh on Thursday underlines the Leftwing terrorists' growing might as well as steely resolve. It is a testimony of Naxalites' enhanced strength and strike capability that they o.. (full story) | | |
| MERI making: Politicos besmirch Parliamentary democracy Our Correspondent The ugliness of the ruckus in Parliament on Tuesday was matched only by the brazenness of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's decision to set up a maritime university in Tamil Nadu. It was indeed a sad day for our democracy—regrettably, suc.. (full story) | |
| Nandigram and the Law of unintended consequences Our Correspondent There is a good idiom to describe the turmoil and violence at Nandigram in West Bengal: chickens coming home to roost. There is another one: you reap what you sow. The communists' past has come to haunt them. Since their advent in the nation's poli.. (full story) | | |
| Deceitful politicians Singur protest is blatant Our Correspondent Had Shakespeare’s Hamlet lived in our times, he would have exclaimed: “Hypocrisy, thy name is politician!” No other vocation celebrates disingenuousness as politics does. The ongoing conflict over the transfer of land by the West Bengal Government to Tata.. (full story) | |
| PM equivocates on Muslims Our Correspondent Equivocation is the favorite ploy of politicians. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the verb ‘equivocate’ means “to use equivocal [that is, having two or more meanings] language especially with intent to deceive;… to avoid committing oneself in.. (full story) | | |
| Politicians forget Parliament attack heroes Our Correspondent All India Anti-Terrorist Front chief M.S. Bitta deserves acclaim for his ceaseless crusade against terrorism in general and his taking up of the Mohammad Afzal issue in particular. He took the initiative and brought the families of security persons who di.. (full story) | |
| BJP’s Sidhu love: Party with indifferent attitude Our Correspondent The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has exposed its brazenness by appointing its tainted leader and former Amritsar MP Navjot Singh Sidhu as a “star campaigner” in the forthcoming Punjab elections. The BJP has always boasted of being a “party with a differen.. (full story) | | |
| Stop phoniness Our Correspondent Many in India, as elsewhere, deride America's war on terror as a Quixotic venture unnecessarily targeting Saddam Hussein, while the dangerous jihadis are active elsewhere. However, our war on terror is even worse; it is phony; only the actors and .. (full story) | |
| Unionizing BPO will hurt the Red bastion Our Correspondent When the Bourbons were restored to the French throne after the Napoleonic wars, they continued with the same old ways that had resulted into the French Revolution of 1789. It was said about them that they had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing: they had.. (full story) | | |
| Muddled thinking Our Correspondent India’s reaction to the death sentence to former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is symptomatic of the muddle-headed thinking that goes on in the foreign office. It would be instructive to read the statement by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on.. (full story) | |
| Politicians may block growth Our Correspondent India is surely ready for the take-off. The question is: will our politicians allow that? Most economic indicators—growth of gross domestic product, industrial production, a confident corporate sector, a surging capital market, among others—are positive a.. (full story) | | |
| India, a soft state Our Correspondent Indian politicians are fond of berating Pakistan for aiding, abetting and arming jihadis. There is much substance in their charges, as Pakistan’s ISI is notorious for fomenting terror in the South Asia region. But we can never convince the international c.. (full story) | |
| Islam unveiled Our Correspondent The controversy surrounding veteran Hindi film actress Shabana Azmi's statement over veil has once again underlined the Muslim community’s ineptness to adapt itself the imperatives of modern times. Azmi said that the Quran does not make it mandatory for a.. (full story) | | |
| Farewell to principles: Congress, BJP follow casteists on quotas Our Correspondent The entire political class is likely to gang up against the judiciary over the issue of reservation. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi has already fired the first salvo, thundering that the recent Supreme Court judgment on reservation is against “th.. (full story) | |
| Price control will hurt pharma sector Our Correspondent The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government, now in the middle of its term in office, has developed a curious habit in its tenure of 29 months: doing everything it should not be doing, and doing nothing that it should be doing While the government ha.. (full story) | | |
| Perpetuating failure: Trishul extension is unjustified Our Correspondent Peaceniks all over world love to chant a mantra: ‘Let’s give peace a chance.’ Paraphrasing this, we in India have developed a policy over the years: ‘Let’s give failure a chance.’ An extension to the Trishul anti-missile project is in consonance with this.. (full story) | |
| Targeting open society Our Correspondent Our ban mania is becoming unmanageable. After outlawing, and having tried to forbid, many things—dance bars in Mumbai, smoking on small screen, art exhibitions, movies, etc—now we are trying to regulate the Internet. The ban mindset is one big problem Ind.. (full story) | | |
| Settling scores Putting politics before national defence Our Correspondent It is a sad commentary on the state of affairs that a most important aspect of national security, defence procurement, has not been sorted out even after 59 years of Independence. There have been controversies surrounding military purchase in the past; bu.. (full story) | |
| Reds deplore democracies, absolves belligerence Our Correspondent Why is it that the communists always take a line on any important issue that is intriguing? Their reaction to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea’s (DPRK’s) nuclear blast illustrates their disdain for our national interest. Communists, who raised a s.. (full story) | | |
| Garibi Hatao II: Idiotic move Our Correspondent All great events and personages, said Karl Marx, appear twice-the first time as a tragedy, the second time as a farce. It is not completely true, but one wishes that the Garibi Hatao (remove poverty) slogan would vindicate Marx's observation in this case... (full story) | |
| Pyongyang should be restrained Our Correspondent There is nothing surprising about North Korea's conducting the nuclear test. The build-up was there for quite some time. Pyongyang's fascination for atomic bombs, missiles and weapons of mass destruction was immense, matched perhaps only by Teheran's penc.. (full story) | | |
| Rebuff to the Left Our Correspondent The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has done well to rubbish the suggestions of communists regarding "alternative resource mobilisation." In the first place, there seems to be an irony in the Left's recipe for such mobilisation, for they dest.. (full story) | |
| Rule of law courts Our Correspondent It is not a happy state of affairs: law courts are performing the duties that are supposed to be carried out by the government. Skeptics may call it judicial activism, the usurpation of the executive powers by courts. But it is not the judiciary but the e.. (full story) | | |
| SEZs should benefit, not hurt, farmers Our Correspondent The government seems to have finally realised that there are anomalies in its special economic zone (SEZ) policy. It is preparing guidelines for acquisition of land from farmers for setting up SEZs. Central officials concerned will meet the representative.. (full story) | |
| Chaos capital: Sealing epitomises systemic failure Our Correspondent Were an alien to land in Delhi and listen to the claims of politicians, he would surely be impressed. Our leaders, intellectuals and opinion-makers are fond of pontificating about the inevitability of India becoming a superpower, a world power, a develope.. (full story) | | |
| GM-Ford Inc? Our Correspondent In politics, they say, there are no permanent friends or foes. Ditto, it seems, is true for business. For General Motors and Ford have been arch rivals in the auto sector—globally as well as within the US, the world’s biggest car market. And they have bee.. (full story) | |
| Havana: All hype, little hope Our Correspondent There was a time when policy-makers, eggheads and sundry intellectuals used to wax eloquent about the various aspects of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). After the Cold War, questions about its relevance were raised. It was with such a ring of skepticism s.. (full story) | | |
| Tyranny of numbers Our Correspondent Recent political developments in Jharkhand are surely not good publicity for the cause of democracy, but then it is not democracy that is at work in the eastern state; it is a farce masking as the democratic process. However, there is no point regretting .. (full story) | |
| Not only pause There has also been rewind on reforms Our Correspondent Equivocation and allusions are the hallmarks of diplomatic parlance. US Ambassador to India David C Mulford, however, prefers to speak clearly and loudly. He has done the nation a favour by reminding our political masters that there has been a “pause” in .. (full story) | | |
| Boom time, but govt may play spoilsport Our Correspondent Impressive industrial performance in July underlines the fact that the economy is on a roll. A rise of 12.4 per cent in the index of industrial production (IIP), though on a low base (in July 2005, growth was 4.7 per cent), is notable on another count: ma.. (full story) | |
| BJP’s Vote Mataram Our Correspondent Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s passionate song, Vande Mataram, inspired patriots during British rule to fight for freedom. More than half a century after Independence, the song, though accorded the status of ‘national song,’ created a huge controversy.. (full story) | | |
| Muslims need to introspect Our Correspondent The reaction of the Muslim community to the Malegaon blasts on Friday typifies its mindset and attitude. Instead of looking inwards for the causes that led to the serial bombings killing 41 and injuring many more, the community has indulged in self-pity a.. (full story) | |
| Banality mars PM’s speech Our Correspondent The United Progressive Alliance Government’s flip-flop in the issues of national security continues unabated. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remarks on internal security at the Chief Ministers’ Conference on Tuesday epitomise his regime’s unreasonablenes.. (full story) | | |
| Paswan strangluates pharma sector Our Correspondent There is a great deal of confusion at the highest levels. On the one hand, there are individuals and ministries that are trying to expedite economic reforms and fashion conditions for progress and development. On the other, there are retrograde elements t.. (full story) | |
| Mandal hawks divide society Our Correspondent All of us are fortunate to live in an age in which Indian society is fast becoming cohesive, thanks to the positive consequences of modernisation and industrialisation. There was a time when asking ‘Kaun jaat ke ho?’ (‘Which caste you belong to’?) .. (full story) | | |
| India Inc gets aggressive Our Correspondent When was the last time you heard the term, “level-playing field”? It was a buzzword in the Indian business in the 1990s. The country had started economic reforms in 1991. While India Inc welcomed liberalisation, it was scared of globalisation. Its logic: .. (full story) | |
| Creeping privatisation Our Correspondent Once upon a time, it seemed that the ancient regime of Nehruvian socialism was dead and buried. It was during the first few years of the new millennium when the National Democratic Alliance Government was, like previous regimes, was opening up the .. (full story) | | |
| CAG is wrong on privatization Our Correspondent The Comptroller & Auditor General’s (CAG’s) criticism of divestment carried out under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government misses a few important points. Arun Shourie, Disinvestment Minister in the NDA Government, has rightly said that the CA.. (full story) | |
| Dasmushi calls the Left’s bluff Our Correspondent Parliamentary Affairs Union Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi should be lauded for having called the bluff of the Left. He has proved, if proof was needed, that communists are unscrupulous bullies who thrive on political blackmail—heed to our “advice,” or el.. (full story) | | |
| UK dumps multiculturalism Our Correspondent It took a series of bomb blasts in London in July last year and a scare recently for the United Kingdom to question the soundness and efficacy of multiculturalism, that leitmotif of Left-liberal fantasies. Multiculturalism is the doctrine advocating that .. (full story) | |
| We have failed against terror Our Correspondent It was in India that the philosophy of karma was born. Over the centuries, philosophers, saints and scholars have nurtured this philosophy. The Indian State, however, has little faith in karma—at least when it comes to tackling the problem of terro.. (full story) | | |
| PM convincing the Left: A charade? Our Correspondent The most conspicuous feature about the Indo-US nuclear deal is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s determination to get it through. There have been a number of issues on which the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government showed remarkable flexibility—even.. (full story) | |
| Politicking over farmers’ suicides Our Correspondent That the condition of farmers of our country is pathetic is a truism. What is really worrisome is the fact the attitude and approach of politicians of various hues remains unchanged. The politicians continue to mouth the same old, and discredited, rhetori.. (full story) | | |
| Arms purchase from Israel: Red treason once again Our Correspondent Anything that is against reason, commonsense, and national interest is always a Leftwing cause. The recent demand by the Communist Party of India (Marxist)—that India should stop defence purchases from Israel—is very much in consonance with the communist .. (full story) | |
| Secularists, jibadis blast Israel Our Correspondent Israel is fighting a war not only against the brutal jihadi outfit, Hezbullah, but an array of forces that are viscerally against it—from bigoted Islamists to chic multiculturalists, from anti-Semite commentators to Muslim appeasers, from our desi secular.. (full story) | | |
| Blaming the victim Our Correspondent The death of four United Nations (UN) observers is indeed a tragic consequence of the recent west Asian conflict. The observers were killed when a bomb directly hit the building and shelter of a patrol base in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of th.. (full story) | |
| UPA appeases jihadi Mahdani Our Correspondent If you want to enjoy a deluxe massage involving 10 masseurs and four senior doctors, you will have to spend a lot of money. An alternative: murder dozens of innocent people by organising serial bomb blasts in a city; the government will arrange for such a.. (full story) | | |
| Mutinous ministers Our Correspondent Do we have a government in our country? Apparently, there is one, run by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But is there any reality behind the appearance? Well, UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, .. (full story) | |
| Jaswant should talk sense Our Correspondent Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have developed a great penchant for creating problems for themselves and for the party. Former External Affairs Minister and senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh’s latest flip-flop on his allegation that there was a .. (full story) | | |
| Censorship in cyberia Our Correspondent The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has acquired extraordinary proficiency in tackling any issue in the worst possible fashion; its recent decision to block a number of blogs is symptomatic of its gauche handling of the terror problem. On Monday, the go.. (full story) | |
| Nobody else will fight for us Our Correspondent St Petersburg has been a pleasant break for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. At home, he is continuously vexed by unruly ministers (on disinvestment, economic reforms and other issues) and the Leftist allies, who have donned the mantle of the Opposition. Th.. (full story) | | |
| Soliciting censorship Our Correspondent Media in the West is often berated for intruding into the private lives of celebrities. The tragic death of Princess Diana in particular focused spotlight on celebrity-chasing paparazzi. In India, however, the media is a lot more democratic: it not only r.. (full story) | |
| In the footsteps of Advani Our Correspondent Having made the right kind of noises in the wake of the Mumbai blasts, now Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to wax eloquent at the G-8 Summit in St Petersburg about the need for adopting “zero tolerance” towards the scourge of terrorism. The most.. (full story) | | |
| Pro-forma reactions to blasts Our Correspondent Maintaining law and order, defending national borders and running administration have traditionally been the duties of any government since time immemorial. In these traditional duties the state of India has failed miserably since Independence. The blasts.. (full story) | |
| Approach to 11th Plan: Beautiful, not bold Our Correspondent The Planning Commission’s approach to the Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) is symptomatic of the national dilemma: there is willingness to offer a policy framework for a high growth rate on a sustainable basis, but also helplessness to do away with the r.. (full story) | | |
| Triumph of tyranny Our Correspondent The dismissal of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director P. Venugopal is symptomatic of the ruling dispensation’s disdain for excellence and fascination for vulgar populism. A distinguished cardiac surgeon who performed the country’s firs.. (full story) | |
| Centre does not hold Our Correspondent It is a case of tail wagging the dog. Minor allies of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) are dictating their agenda, and the biggest party of the alliance is unquestioningly accepting the unjustified demands. The decision of the Cabinet committee on ec.. (full story) | | |
| BJP's idiocy: Support for quotas Our Correspondent The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), supposedly a champion of Hindu interests, is busy dividing the Hindu community by supporting the pernicious caste-based reservations. The statesman, they say, thinks about the next generation; the politician about .. (full story) | |
| Medicos fight insanity Our Correspondent Words fail to describe the courage, conviction, and resolve of the striking medicos. Their protest against the expansion of the scope of reservation in the specialty courses is not a selfish act to ‘monopolize’ higher studies, as pro-quota intellectuals s.. (full story) | | |
| Secularism raises its ugly head in Nepal Our Correspondent Secularists, communists, liberals, and other Hindu-haters in our countryand elsewhereare happy that Nepal has become ‘secular.’ For, in their scheme of things, nothing is more horrendous than anything Hindu; and a Hindu state was indubitab.. (full story) | |
| Supreme Court upholds rule of law Our Correspondent The Supreme Court needs to be lauded for its landmark and sagacious decision on Tuesday in which it turned down the plea that poverty be accepted as an excuse to grab public land. "If you are occupying public land, you have no legal right, what to .. (full story) | | |
| Save India from Patkar Our Correspondent It is time to start ‘Save India from Medha Patkar Andolan.’ For this self-styled champion of the nation is hell-bent on fighting any measure that is for development, progress, and improvement. Effectively checked by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra .. (full story) | |
| Govt wakes up to Naxal threat Our Correspondent We, the people of India, should thank our stars that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has finally woken up to the Naxalite threat. He has vindicated our stand, as we wrote on July 6 last year (‘India: A failed state’), that our “country is hurtling towards a.. (full story) | | |
| Advani is wrong on Kandhar Our Correspondent With each passing day, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are setting new standards of impropriety, inelegance, and unbecomingness. L.K. Advanis latest asininitythat he had disagreed with the government decision on Kandharjust und.. (full story) | |
| Mandal II and Middle India’s culpability Our Correspondent The middle class has started its campaign against Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh for his attempts to introduce reservations for the so-called other backward classes (OBCs) in premier educational institutions. But one has to be sanguine to.. (full story) | | |
| Sonia’s ‘sacrifices’ and media’s gullibility Our Correspondent Congress president Sonia Gandhi has perfected the art of making virtue out of necessity. And her party’s members, in the best traditions of Dynasty worship, have honed their sycophantic skills to such an extent that they describe any “sacrifice” made by h.. (full story) | |
| A Successful Taiwan Delegation Visit Our Correspondent The relations between India and Taiwan have reached the take-off stage. This was evident from the warm reception that a high-level delegation from Taiwan recently got in India. The Taiwan delegation met and interacted with a wide cross-section of policy-m.. (full story) | | |
| Meet blasts BJP’s perfidy Our Correspondent A visit to the National Convention on Census 2001: Emerging Challenges, organized by the Cenre for Policy Studies (CPS), was an experience both elating and depressing. Elating, for it showed that there are many concerned citizens who worry about the grave.. (full story) | |
| Need to forge a political instrument Our Correspondent The seminar, ‘Threats to India’s Integrity,’ organized by the Centre for National Renaissance (CNR), has called for all patriotic forces to forge a political instrument to challenge the forces threatening our national integrity. The seminar was or.. (full story) | | |
| Lies galore at CPI(M) meet Our Correspondent The letter ‘m’ in CPI(M) should stand for mendacity. It became amply clear at the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). In his opening speech, the CPI(M)’s outgoing secretary general Harkishan Singh Surjeet said, “The Communist .. (full story) | |
| Govt shows spine: FDI in realty sector cleared Our Correspondent The government has dared the Left by liberalizing foreign direct investment (FDI) in the real estate sector. The cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) on Thursday fully opened up the construction development sector for foreign investors. Th.. (full story) | | |
| Sins of intellectuals Our Correspondent The ongoing controversy over Vinod Pande’s feature film, Sins, demonstrates the double standards and mafia-like intellectual hegemony of our opinion-makers. The film, to be released on February 25, depicts a Christian priest having sexual r.. (full story) | |
| Ahmedabad as cricket venue: Pakistan humiliates India Our Correspondent Pakistan has succeeded in humiliating India on the issue of Ahmedabad as a cricket venue. And the Indian government and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have submissively accepted the humiliation. It is an accepted practice that the host c.. (full story) | | |
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