2010

In the deadliest Maoist attack on paramilitary forces in the Makrana forests some three kilometres from Chintalnar village in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district—and 540 kilometres soautheast of the State capital Raipur—some 76 personnel of the CRPF’s 62nd Battalion were killed in the early hours of April 6, 2010 thereby manifesting once again the adivasi-dominated Maoists’ resolute determination to resist the Indian state’s concerted efforts, through military means, to reclaim the “liberated (…)

TRIBUTE
The passing away of Girija Prasad Koirala, popularly known as ‘Girija Babu’, at one of the most critical junctures of democratic nation-building in Nepal and democratisation of South Asia is a great tragedy. His leaving us has left us without any ‘statesman’ in South Asia. But we can feel consoled by the fact that he has not departed without advance alert and enough pre-parations for his followers, friends and admirers.
Girija Babu was a multifaceted leader for my (…)

[TRIBUTE
Outstanding diplomat C.B. Muthamma who, as a distinguished member of the Foreign Service, headed Indian missions in several countries, passed away in Bangalore on October 15, 2009. She was a person endowed with a vision and sense of purpose—an extraordinary thinker having the interest of the nation at heart. In a few days times it will be six months since her departure from our midst. We belatedly offer our sincere tribute to her abiding memory with the following piece written (…)

People will recall that some years ago the Shiv Sena first caught the news headlines with its campaign against “Madrasis”, that is, South Indians living in Mumbai. A few years later this campaign faded out and was replaced by a campaign against non-Maharattas. It was as if Maharashtra was a sovereign country, indepen-dent of the contributions to its growth and importance by businessmen, scientists, adminis-trators and others from all over the country. In recent years the Shiv Sena has (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The unprovoked shooting down of an Iranian civilian airbus by the US warships in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf on July 3 killing nearly 300 innocent lives, has shocked the world public.
In a pathetic bid to cover up this ghastly crime by the American armada, President Reagan called it “a terrible human tragedy” but sought to justify it by saying that it was “a proper defensive action” by the US Navy. Through a series of false (…)

The Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, made two notable presentations recently. In one, delivered to top police officials, he dwelt at length on the Maoist threat to the country. In the other, delivered to top intelligence officials, the Minister went into the new national security architecture he proposes to set up. However, he had nothing to say on the vexed issue of enforcing police reforms and protecting human rights.
Important official reports in this regard are the 2006 Soli (…)

The provision of the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution has generated a lot of interest in the affairs of welfare and development mostly in the areas predominated by the Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the central belt of India. Social activists and a group of bureaucrats and ex-bureaucrats are claiming that this Schedule is the panacea for all tribal discord. If the tenets of this constitutional provision are fully implemented the tribesmen will emancipate from their present state of plight and (…)

In the process of growth of an economy like India, the level of income of the people, though unevenly, has also been continuously increasing. The increased level of income of the people has a significant impact on their consumption levels. In the process, not only does the demand for existing products increase but at the same time people prefer to shift to better quality products. One can, therefore, notice that industries per-taining to the ‘consumer goods’ sector are making rapid progress (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Chasing the Dragon: Will India Catch Up with China? by Mohan Guruswamy and Zorawar Daulet Singh; Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd., licensees of Pearson Education in South Asia; Second Impression, 2010; pages 188.
In the comparative analysis for the South Asian neighbourhood and world geopolitics, pitching India contra China is customary. The two nations sharing historical and civilsational bondages, frontiers, alongside asymmetry in terms of resources, territory, (…)

Even before the dust could settle down after the India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary level talks failed to generate much hope on the roadmap of peace, there is furore on the possibility of the US offering a nuclear deal to Pakistan. Prior to the US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue, there was widespread speculation on a nuclear deal between the US and Pakistan similar to the India-US civilian nuclear agreement. At the end of the dialogue on March 25, both sides pledged “wide-ranging, long-term and (…)