2014

This article appeared in the DNA (Mumbai) just before the Independence Day this year. It is being reproduced, with due acknowledgement, for the benefit of our readers.
As India’s 67th Independence Day approaches and speculation mounts about Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose receiving a posthumous Bharat Ratna, my thoughts go back to the Indian National Army and members of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment—the first all-women’s military wing of the world. Netaji had announced the Provisional Government (…)

The recent proclamation by India at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meet in Australia— that it has the right to retain higher stock-holding of foodgrains—has led to arguments over the Bali Agreement, the final Trade Facilit-ation Agreement (TFA).
India’s latest veto has ignited debates from the national and international levels alike. At one side, it was argued that India, with its change from the coalition era to a single party- dominant National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which rose to (…)

EDITORIAL
The situation in Maharashtra prior to the impending State Assembly elections has taken a new turn with the break-up of both the alliances—that of the ruling Congress-NCP combine and the one of the Opposition BJP and Shiv Sena. However, the final picture is still unclear: even if the Congress on the one side and the Shiv Sena on the other have decided to go it alone, it is yet to be seen if the NCP would eventually have overt or covert electoral understanding with the BJP.
But (…)

India and China represent one-third of humanity to make their mutual relationship both illustrative and compelling. The choices and contradictions before the Sino-Indian multitude can serve as an example of what people at large have to live and contend with. The duo also hold the world’s attention because put together they have the power or agency to predetermine events.
Border incursions by China into eastern Ladakh, reportedly at their heaviest on the second day of Chinese President Xi (…)

by Sheel Bhadra Kumar
Relationships in international politics, especially with neighbours, are highly complicated, sensitive and volatile. Nation-states have to handle and settle their bilateral issues very delicately keeping in view others’ concerns, perceptions and aspirations. If bilateral issues and concerns are handled delicately with neighbours, there can develop a cordial and stable relationship beneficial not only for them but also for others in the region. But If nations fail to (…)

IMPRESSIONS
It’s a remarkable coincidence that Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping are brothers cast in the same mould. Both are believers in centralised authority, who spent their initial months in office consolidating their hold on the power structure. Both seek enlarged international status for their countries and for themselves. Both are fighters behind their smiles. Both are shrewd with the capacity to be, when necessary, ruthless. Both manoeuvre and manipulate with skill. Preparatory to his (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Narendra Modi, an RSS pracharak, could not be expected to possess a broader view of the national and global perspective as Atal Behari Vajpayee had. Modi suffered from a sense of personality complex but strove hard to project himself as the independent, new face of the Indian as well as Hindutva politics. He followed the political line: if you have to occupy the centre-stage in the political arena oppose and deride all, challenge any person who crosses you. He has been (…)

I had concluded my last article (“Troubling Times for the Constitutional Republic,” Mainstream, Vol LII, No. 36, August 30, 2014) on a note of speculation about how Modiji’s equation with the ground-level Hindutva campaign directed chiefly at Muslims and women might or might not shape in the coming days and months.
That speculation derived from the general criticism that India’s chief executive who had assumed the numero uno position within the democratic-constitutional scheme was not (…)

VIEW FROM PAKISTAN
This article was sent to us by the author for publication some time ago but could not be published earlier. —Editor
Pakistan completes 67 years as a nation-state while its Armed Forces conduct an unprece-dented campaign to crush the sanctuaries of terrorists who breach the country’s land fron-tiers with impunity. Another country, located 10,000 miles away, uses drones with equal impunity to violate Pakistan’s aerial frontiers. But it does so implicitly, with a (…)

by Harihar Swarup
What message does the by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Assam and West Bengal send? One loud and clear message is that the Modi wave is losing its momentum. Coming on the heels of the setback in the Uttarakhand and Bihar by-polls, last week’s by-election results in five States show a steady decline in the BJP’s rating. The Congress won all the three seats in Assembly by-polls in Uttarakhand on July 25. Laloo Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar turned their (…)