December 20, 2008 - Annual Number 2008

There was hope there was also apprehension,
– Because the Demon was in no way healthy.
– Nor was there the mind to be cured.
Yes, we had seen sudden cataclysms happen in Nature
– Of Sun and Rain and Thunder or of primeval beasts,
– But when man gets ill with greed
– Then the damage is worse than that of a natural beast.
At the last stage of endless fortitude
– Of crores of human lives, from the lowest depths
– Of the animal world the beast’s unspeakable
– Mastery in trickery and (…)

At a time when New Delhi is nervously watching signals about the India policy of President-elect Barack Obama, a think-tank close to his transition team has proposed a rejection of Condoleezza Rice’s doctrine of de-hyphenating India and Pakistan, a doctrine that governed US-India relations under the Bush Administration and became the basis of the controversial India-US nuclear agreement.
The new Report by the Center for American Progress (CAP),
“Advocating a New Strategy for Prosperity (…)

In the context of what has come to be known as Mumbai 11/26, in an article “Take the war to the enemy” by Captain Bharat Verma, Editor of Indian Defence Review, in IDR of December 8, 2008, he recommends that we must “take this war to Pakistan and make them pay the price”. It may be understood that he recommends that India take military action against Pakistan, though it is not at all clear what is meant by making “them” pay the price, nor what is the price to be paid to whom. Would the (…)

There is one image which refuses to fade: heavily armed terrorists moving around the dance floor of the seven-star hotel in darkness, with the full awareness that they would die very soon. What were the thoughts of these men who broke into the magnificent hotel and moved around the antique pieces, the chandeliers hanging from the gilded ceiling and the priceless pieces of furniture?
None of the journalists gathered outside the hotel under siege were even thinking of the ten (or was it (…)

India has been a victim of terrorism partly organised and mounted from our neighbouring country, Pakistan, and partly engendered and engineered by domestic forces, for longer than any other country in the world. The attack by ten terrorists coming from outside the country by the sea route, on principal landmarks in the city of Mumbai, the commercial hub of India, was unprecedented in its daring and intensity of violence. The people of Mumbai and the country as a whole are still trying to (…)

The CIA is still running dozens or even hundreds of so-called secret prisons in different parts of the world. After the exposure of the CIA-run network of secret prisons in Europe, George W. Bush has evidently chosen to move them to Asia. One of these is in Udon, the capital of a province in Thailand, located 560 km northeast of Bangkok, the Thai capital. The Thai Air Force has a base in Udon known as “Kong Bin 203” and US military transport and private planes frequently land there with (…)

‘Hope springs eternal in human breast’ is an old adage in English. It became quite meaningful when I came to know with a lot of happiness a few days back from the newspapers that the Union Cabinet has approved the Right to Education Bill, 2005 and that the said Bill was likely to be introduced in the forthcoming winter session of Parliament in December 2008.
In 1946 India signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 26 of the Declaration said that everyone had the right to (…)

[(COMMUNICATION)]
This year a lot of publicity had been given to a Rs 60000 crore loan relief scheme for farmers which was later extended to a Rs 71,000 crore scheme. This scheme did not include loans taken from private moneylenders, it was confined to loans taken from banks and related financial institutions. Still this scheme had raised a lot of hope as many farmers had significant levels of bank debt. While the scheme provided full waiver for small farmers, it also promised 25 per cent (…)

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai have hurt every Indian and there is a growing debate on how best we should confront this situation of vulnerability. At this critical juncture the Indian people must evolve a response that is consistent with the values for which they have fought a freedom struggle from colonialism and have been engaged in building a meaningful democratic society for the last sixty years. The Mumbaikars’ suffering of November 26 will have to be remem-bered together with (…)

[(BOOK REVIEW)]
Trapped! Between the Devil and Deep Waters by Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra; published by People’s Science Institute, Dehradun and South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDARP), New Delhi; 2008; pages 206; Rs 595.
The book is a culmination of Dr Dinesh Mishra’s down-to-earth understanding of the flood problems not only of the Kosi but the entire linked-up river network of North Bihar—that even involves Nepal. This unique chronicle depicts the personal experiences of a (…)