September 20, 2008

[(BOOK REVIEW)]
Scrap Book of a Prime Minister by I.K. Gujral, edited by K.L. Nandan; Rajpal Publishers, New Delhi.
Due to the proximity that I have with the Gujrals, I have been persuading IK to write his memoirs in the format of an autobiography. I am glad, I have succeeded and not long ago, he started doing so regularly. The other day Mrs Gujral told me that early one morning not finding him in the bed, she went looking for him in the house and found him in the study, busy writing. (…)

The colonial legacy has been haunting India even sixty years after independence. The British had cunningly devised the PWD and finance codes for all construction activities for Indians to instill a sense of guilt, besides sapping national pride and integrity. Yet, none of these basic working rules have been altered to adjust to an independent nation! Possibly the Indian rulers want to continue in a neo-colonial, master- servant mode!
The rules call for multiple quotations for all (…)

Orissa is in the grip of communal violence. It is shameful that the noble name of religion has been used to kill innocent people. It is alleged that Christian missionaries have been converting people in several parts of the State. Those who do so are the self-proclaimed guardians of Hinduism. They have been spreading the falsehood that the rate at which conversion is taking place will eventually endanger Hinduism. They apprehend that rise in number of Christians will imperil national unity. (…)

Disputing official Chinese accounts of Beijing having played a “constructive” role in the recent Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting on India, diplomats from several NSG states say China stood by the handful of countries resisting approval of the India waiver and only backed off when it saw the opposition melt away on the morning of September 6.
At the same time, some diplomats questioned the suggestion that China was out to block the deal, with one European envoy who took part in the (…)

Energy experts of the NB Central Asia Agency are of the opinion that execution of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project still looks quite doubtful, since the pipeline has to pass through war-ravaged Afghanistan yet highly unsettled and in the throes of instability. There are other impediments as well, and these include the lack of confidence in the existence of sufficient quantity of gas to ensure the project’s viability and profitability as also the difficulties (…)