Mainstream Weekly

Formidable Journalist, Outstanding Chronicler

H K Dua — 2016-07-09T09:08:13Z

TRIBUTE
In the death of Inder Malhotra, India has lost its most outstanding chronicler.
As a young man of 17, Inder Malhotra was there somewhere in the multitudes of people who went up Raisina Hill to watch the birth of free India at the stroke of midnight of August 14-15, 1947.
From then, the careers of both India as a free nation and Inder as an aspiring journalist ran parallel to each other—until Saturday (June 11) when he breathed his last.
Over nearly 70 years, Inder watched (…)

- 2016

Unfurling Tricolour atop the Haji Pir Pass

H K Dua — 2015-09-28T15:40:44Z

For years after Independence and partition of the country, Haji Pir Pass was not much in the news. Even during the 1948 war in Kashmir it did not get as much display in newspapers as its strategic position warranted. After the ceasefire, Haji Pir Pass fell in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). It, however, continued to be present fairly prominently on the operational maps of the two armies — India's and Pakistan's, and the mental map of the strategic community on the subcontinent.
I was (…)

- 2015

China: Straws in the Wind

H K Dua — 2010-11-30T23:57:24Z

For quite some time, India and China have been at odds with each other and have watched their relations turning from bad to worse. The downward slide in relations between the Asia's two neighbours has caused concern to all those who believe that it is not necessary for the two neighbours to continue living in hostility.
The way things were going out of hand recently both in Beijing and Delhi could lead to serious consequences for stability in a region where one-fourth of the humanity (…)

- 2010

Obama & Co are Planning to Run Away from Afghanistan

H K Dua — 2010-11-10T15:49:51Z

With Afghanistan facing a lot of uncertainty in the foreseeable future, it is imperative for India to begin thinking of how it should meet the contin-gencies arising in its immediate neighbourhood.
Latest reports from Kabul tend to suggest that President Hamid Karzai's government has in a way begun talking to a section of the Taliban. Although these talks are at a preliminary level, the idea is to promote “reconciliation” to facilitate the induction of what in President Barak Obama's (…)

- 2010

Pulling Out is not Peace, Obama needs to Re-do his Sums

H K Dua — 2010-09-17T09:11:39Z

Most reports emanating from Washington indicate that the United States is caught in an acute dilemma over Afghanistan. Having spent nine years fighting in the mountainous terrain without achieving what it wanted to, policy-makers in Washington are debating not the pros and cons of a pull-out, but when to pull out of Afghanistan.
The issue will be clinched in December when President Barak Obama has called a high-level review conference after which he will take the call about the time-table (…)

- 2010

Afghanistan - Guarantees are the Best Way Out

H K Dua — 2010-05-21T09:16:12Z

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 (…)

- 2010