2010

Is the law supposedly meant for the protection of Dalits and tribals put to misuse?
It is a theme which recurs regularly in the discussions engaged in by the chattering classes of the country. While nobody can deny that frivolous cases are not filed under this Act, the manner in which the issue gets raised creates an impression that the only ‘use’ of this law is its ‘misuse’. Neither the members of our polity nor the articulate sections of our society seem ready to go for a reality (…)

Afghanistan has always been a prisoner of its geography and history and this imponderable has blocked its emergence as an independent and sovereign nation with a will of its own. Its strategic location could have been an asset for the region and the world; on the contrary, it has turned out to be the cause of its troubles and long spells of political instability.
Other nations have often found it tempting to meddle in Afghanistan’s affairs and play games—great and not so great—on its (…)

The changes introduced in the strategy of growth during the past two years had created an impression that politics has triumphed over economics in the sense that the concerns of the poorer sections of society have prevailed over the ambitions of economists and the dominant social groups to pursue an investment led model embedded in the primacy of the market and withdrawal of the state pursued since the onset of the reforms. As these changes had come about in the wake of the collapse of the (…)

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s recent visit to New Delhi lasting two days took place at a defining moment in the Afghan civil war. Karzai is about to embark on a crucial peace and reconciliation project. He just completed talks in three important regional capitals—Islamabad, Tehran and Beijing—explaining his strategy, for the success of which he needs the understanding from the regional powers. Tehran and Beijing were forthcoming in their support of the Afghan Government whereas Islamabad (…)

Executives at the US security firm, Blackwater, approved secret payments of about one million dollars to Iraqi officials to “silence their criticism” after company guards killed 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007, according to the New York Times.
Citing interviews with four unnamed former Blackwater executives, the newspaper disclosed that the company’s President at the time, Gary Jackson, approved the bribes.
Money was sent from neighbouring Jordan to their top company manager (…)

In the end the Indian judicial system and democracy have triumphed. Ajmal Amir Kasab, the young Pakistani who with his group of motivated terrorists, trained in and supervised from Pakistani soil, carried out the audacious Mumbai terror attack in November 2008, killing in the process 166 persons, both Indians and foreigners, and who was personally responsible for 72 deaths due to indiscriminate firing, has been convicted and sentenced to death by Special Sessions Judge M.L. Tahiliyani in (…)

A cut motion was moved by the Opposition parties in the Lok Sabha on April 27 to ensure that the government is censured on the issue of raising the prices of petrol and diesel. Simultaneously, 13 Opposition parties called for a Bharat bandh to protest against price rise. These parties excluded the parties in the National Democratic Alliance. Earlier, on April 21, the NDA had organised a big public demonstration on the issue of rising prices. While the bandh had a partial success, the cut (…)

The country is heading towards a political vacuum in the sense that the two national level parties—the Congress and BJP—are weakening day by day. The Congress, a secular party, is no longer in a position to mobilise the masses to protect their rights, even the legal rights, and the bureaucracy has become so much anti-people and corrupt that even the funds sanctioned for the public do not reach them. Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister had said that only 16 paise out of one rupee reach the (…)

With his return from the Dhaka Summit, Rajiv Gandhi’s budget for foreign tours for the current year is exhausted, the most impressive that any Prime Minister of India has undertaken in the first year in office. The time for drawing up the balance-sheet for the year has not come, since the over-publicised stop-over in New Delhi by General Zia on December 16 is yet to be assessed.
The Dhaka Summit which institutionalised South Asian Regional Cooperation by setting up its Association is (…)

The potentialities of South Asian identity were unfolded in a three-day SAARC writers and literature conference which I attended recently in Delhi. It became fairly obvious that bilateral disputes, which have retarded the growth of the region, are cut to size when viewed in the context of the SAARC. Moreover, the South Asian identity can be better developed through non-official efforts than by formal government efforts.
The delegates to the conference became conscious and emphasised (…)