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Jun 1, ‘07, Frontline

Mayawati creates history

	Mayawati has emerged as India’s tallest Dalit leader after Dr B.R. Ambedkar. She has secured a prominent place in the history of Indian democracy which few can hope even to lay a claim to. By leading her Bahujan Samajan Party to an unambiguous, clinching victory in Uttar Pradesh, she has broken what has been the state’s political impasse for decades, with a fleeting exception in 1991—namely, a division of votes along caste and community lines due to the urge of subaltern groups for direct self-representation. This results in hung Assemblies and ensures endemic instability. (No U.P. Chief Minister has completed his/her full term for about four decades.)
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May 28, ‘07

Savage Repression In Chhattisgarh - When the state turn lawless

	The detention in Raipur of noted human rights activist Binayak Sen under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005 (PSA) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act has rightly attracted nationwide condemnation from citizens’ groups. Dr Sen, general secretary of the Chhattisgarh People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), and the union’s national vice-president, was arrested for his alleged links with banned Maoist groups. The critical allegation against Dr Sen is that he met senior Maoist leader Narayan Sanyal more than 30 times in recent months in the Raipur central jail where he has been detained.
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May 21, ‘07

Mayawati’s Stupendous Feat - New turn in politics?

	Ms Mayawati has pulled off what most pundits and pollsters thought she would never be able to do: win an unambiguous majority in Uttar Pradesh’s 403-strong Assembly. The number of seats she won (206) greatly surpasses the 115-to-168 range that most opinion polls forecast for her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Her feat is all the more impressive because she fought against seemingly insuperable odds, as a single woman and a Dalit in one of India’s most socially backward and conservative states. Her sole political instrument was the BSP, with its relatively small Dalit core and without the advantages of experience, visibility, social acceptability and favourable media coverage which its rivals possess.
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May 19, ‘07, The News International

India’s Dalit mini-revolution

	A 51 year-old single woman, a Dalit who grew up in slums, has pulled off a staggering political shift in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, which has almost the same population as all of Pakistan. Her Bahujan Samaj Party has secured an unambiguous majority in the 403-strong Assembly. The number of seats it won (206) greatly surpasses the 115-to-168 range that most opinion polls forecast for the BSP.
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May 19, ‘07, Khaleej Times

BSP pulls off a feat in India

	Dalit leader Mayawati has engineered a major political shift in India. She has pulled off what most pollsters thought she would never be able to do: win an unambiguous majority in Uttar Pradesh’s 403-strong Assembly. The number of seats she won (206) greatly surpasses the 115-168 range that opinion polls forecast for her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
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May 18, ‘07, Frontline

Igniting a new Cold War?

	Boris Yeltsin’s death was an occasion for many Western leaders and commentators to reflect on—or rather, gloat over—the collapse of the Soviet Union, and eventually, Russia’s transition to a bizarre, autocratic, oligarch-dominated form of capitalism. In some ways, this was only natural. Yeltsin presided over the burial of the last remains of the USSR’s socialist system and wrought structural changes, including the introduction of private property, which would ensure that Russia would never return smoothly to collective ownership of the means of production in any form.
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May 17, ‘07, Inter Press Service

India’s underclass stages a political revolution

	The word “Dalit” has entered the international lexicon in recent years as an evocative reminder of the unique cruelty and injustice of India’s caste system. Dalits, who comprise roughly 15 percent of the country’s population, are the true Wretched of the Indian Earth: dirt poor, discriminated against, disadvantaged in social and educational terms, and demonised as “impure” by virtue of birth, and hence Untouchable.
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May 12, ‘07, The News International

India’s crony capitalist model

	On May Day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh struck an unusually reflective and candid note while speaking at the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development in Delhi. He said he’s “puzzled by the persisting regional imbalance in industrial development… in India.” He expressed serious concern that most Indian businessmen operate in “oligopolistic markets and in sectors where the government [gives] them special privileges”.
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May 12, ‘07, Khaleej Times

Cronyism with a vengeance

	Critics of India’s growth model have long argued that it’s based on a collusive business-government relationship, which guarantees undeserved but huge profits for corporations, besides producing terrible social imbalances. On May Day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself admitted this by striking an unusually reflective note. Speaking at an institute in Delhi, he said he’s “puzzled” by persistent regional imbalances and that most Indian businessmen operate in “oligopolistic markets and in sectors where the government [gives] them special privileges”.
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May 8, ‘07, Tehelka

Persian Puzzles

	Iran is a land of paradoxes, contrasts and contradictions. Consider a few. Here, bottled water is costlier than petrol or diesel—despite the newly introduced rationing of fuel, which has raised petroleum prices. Iran is ruled by the vilayat-e-faqih system (government under clerical guidance), which dictates rules of personal conduct, as well as public behaviour. Orthodox Islam prohibits the depiction of holy figures. But pictures of various prophets and imams embossed on paper and cloth are routinely sold in the streets.
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May 4, '07, Frontline

Politics as intimidation

	No Indian political formation can even remotely match the Bharatiya Janata Party when it comes to violating norms of political decency, defying the law, and pursuing an outrageously divisive and sectarian agenda. The latest instance is its release on April 3 of a viciously anti-Muslim compact disc entitled Bharat ki Pukar as part of its campaign material for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
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Apr 30, ‘07

Iran’s Democracy Suffers Erosion - Freedom on a knife’s edge

	The Iranian Artists’ Forum is the kind of institution any country would be proud of. Situated in the heart of Tehran, the Forum is a lively, pulsating place, with auditoria, seminar rooms and exhibition halls, at which exciting events happen. It displays stunning modern sculptures and photographs and is home to one of the world’s best puppet theatres. The Forum exudes the freedom and creativity of Iran’s flourishing art world. Not many developing countries have a comparable arts complex inspired by liberal multiculturalism and pluralism.
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Apr 28, ‘07, The News International

Inside Iran today

	The Iranian Artists’ Forum is the kind of institution any country would be proud of—a lively, pulsating place, with auditoria, seminar rooms and exhibition halls, at which exciting events in Iran’s flourishing art world happen. It’s similar to Lahore’s Alhambra complex, only more liberal, multicultural and plural.
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Apr 28, ‘07, Khalej Times

Iran: freedom under squeeze

	The Iranian Artists’ Forum is the kind of institution any country would be proud of—a lively, pulsating place, with auditoria, seminar rooms and exhibition halls, where exciting events happen. The Forum exudes the freedom and creativity of Iran’s flourishing art world. Not many developing countries have anything comparable.
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Apr 23, ‘07

The Stakes in Uttar Pradesh - Congress still lacks a strategy

	Mr Rahul Gandhi’s boastful remark about his family’s unique pre-eminence, achievements and role in “dividing Pakistan” in 1971 has stirred a hornet’s nest both domestically and across the border. In his speech at Badaun, Mr Gandhi claimed virtual omnipotence for the Nehru-Gandhi family and declared: “I belong to [a] family which has… never gone back on its words… You know that when my family decides to do anything, it does it—be it the freedom struggle, the division of Pakistan, or taking India to the 21st century.”
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Apr 21, ‘07, The News International

Mired in immaturity

	ndian National Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has seemingly set the cat among the pigeons by boastfully claiming that “I belong to [a] family which has… never gone back on its words… [When] my family decides to do anything, it does it—be it the freedom struggle, the division of Pakistan, or taking India to the 21st century.” This remark about his grandmother Indira Gandhi having been single-handedly responsible for the “achievement” of breaking up Pakistan in 1971 has triggered a vigorous debate in India, Pakistan, and to a certain extent, Bangladesh. Its reverberations certainly go well beyond Uttar Pradesh, in the context of whose legislature elections, currently under way, Gandhi’s claim was made.
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Apr 21, ‘07, Khaleej Times

‘Reverse engineering’ in Uttar Pradesh

	In India, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s boastful remark about his family’s achievements and role in “dividing Pakistan” has stirred a hornet’s nest. Gandhi claimed virtual omnipotence for the Nehru-Gandhi clan and declared: “[When] my family decides to do anything, it does it—be it the freedom struggle, the division of Pakistan, or taking India to the 21st century.”
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Apr 20, ‘07, Frontline

Supreme Court judgement against OBCs

	The Supreme Court judgment against reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in admissions to Central institutions of higher learning is the latest in a series of verdicts by India’s higher judiciary which seek to undo existing or proposed measures to promote equality and justice. It sets back the cause of building an inclusive, caring-and-sharing society which genuinely values diversity.
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Apr 18, ‘07, Sakal

Understanding UP’s epic theatre

	A massive, probably tectonic, change in the political balance-of-forces seems to be under way in Uttar Pradesh, the like of which no other state has witnessed. This shift is likely to prove important not just because UP single-handedly determines 15 percent of Parliament’s composition. It’s also because it may influence trends in the Hindi belt, indeed the whole country. I add qualifications like “may” and “likely” because of UP’s highly fluid situation and exceptional difficulties in forecasting voter behaviour there.
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Apr 16, ‘07, Book Review: Frontline

Rationalising imperial conquest

	Masks of Empire - Achin Vanaik (ed) Five and a half years after the United States launched its Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001 by invading Afghanistan, the world has become considerably more insecure, and terrorism has become more menacing than ever before. A study by Centre on Law and Security at the NYU Foundation for “Mother Jones” magazine in the U.S. finds that there has been a 607 percent increase in the incidence of terrorism between September 2001 to March 2003, and March 2003 to September 2006.
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Apr 16, ‘07

BJP Plumbs The Lower Depths - Elections & a viciously communal CD

	The Bharatiya Janata Party has brazenly defied the law of the land and used despicably communal means to try to win votes by producing a virulently anti-Muslim compact disc (CD). This was expressly commissioned for the Uttar Pradesh election campaign and officially released with fanfare by senior state party leaders Lalji Tandon and Kesri Nath Tripathi on April 3, four days before the first round of polling in the seven-phase election.
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Apr 14, ‘07, The News International

Back to its anti-Muslim roots…

	Three years after sending the Bharatiya Janata Party packing, India again faces a fresh communal challenge to its democracy and electoral system. Nothing symbolises the emerging contention over this better than a despicably foul, rabidly anti-Muslim compact disc (CD) commissioned and distributed by the BJP for the Uttar Pradesh elections.
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Apr 14, ‘07, Khaleej Times

BJP plumbs the lower depths

	India’s Bharatiya Janata Party has resorted to foul communal means to win votes by producing a virulently anti-Muslim compact disc. The CD was expressly commissioned for the Uttar Pradesh elections and released with fanfare by its top state leaders Lalji Tandon and Kesri Nath Tripathi four days before the first round of polling. So obnoxious was the CD that the BJP hastily “withdrew” it. It now pretends it knew nothing about it.
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Apr 12, ‘07, Inter Press Service

Hindu party defies India’s election law

	The Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party, which led India’s coalition government between 1998 and 2004, has mounted an aggressive challenge to the country’s legal and electoral system. It has defied India’s election law by distributing inflammatory anti-Muslim material while soliciting votes in elections to the legislature of Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, and the world’s sixth most populous political entity.
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Apr 9, ‘07

An Assault On Affirmative Action - Verdict on OBC quotas

	The Supreme Court of India has opened a can of worms by pronouncing a verdict against reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Central institutions of higher learning. The judgment has major long-term implications and will further widen the growing divide between the higher judiciary and the executive as well as the legislature. It has rankled political parties virtually across the board and will be bitterly contested.
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Apr 7, ‘07, The News International

Setback to affirmative action

	The Supreme Court of India has opened a can of worms by pronouncing itself against reservations for the low and middle orders of society (Other Backward Classes-OBCs) in admissions to Central institutions of higher learning. This halts India’s attempt at affirmative action and will further widen the growing divide between the higher judiciary and the executive/legislature. It has rankled political parties virtually across the board.
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Apr 7, ‘07, Khaleej Times

Affirmative action halted

	India’s Supreme Court has opened a can of worms by pronouncing itself against reservations for the low and middle castes (Other Backward Classes-OBCs) in Central institutions of higher learning. This halts India’s attempt at affirmative action for underprivileged groups and will widen the growing divide between the higher judiciary and the executive/legislature. It has rankled political parties across the board.
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Apr 6, ‘07, Frontline

Sleepwalking into disaster in West Asia

	The fourth anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq on March 20, the aggravation of the Palestinian crisis after Israel's refusal to recognise the new Hamas-Fatah government, and the military build-up targeting Iran, all highlight the pivotal importance of West Asia in today's world. The region, now marked by exceptional volatility, has become the crucible in which global geopolitics and geoeconomics will be shaped in the years to come.
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Apr 5, ‘07, Inter Press Service

South Asia moves forward, cautiously, unevenly

	South Asia, home to more than one-sixth of humanity, and situated at the junction of three important sub-regions of the Asian continent, has made cautious moves towards mutual cooperation and greater integration.
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Mar 28, '07, Tehelka

In the line of fire, without a shield?

	Judged by any yardstick, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is both a lucky man and an astute tactician. With his amazingly robust survival instincts, he has weathered any number of crises since he seized power in October 1999. The list begins with his first retreat on domestic reforms in 2000; the collapse of the Agra summit in July 2001; the September 11 attacks on the United States by al-Qaeda, itself linked to forces nurtured in Pakistan. Then followed the US-led war on Afghanistan; the 10 month-long eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with India; the 2003 assassination attempt on Musharraf; and disclosures in 2004 about Dr A Q Khan’s “Nuclear Wal-Mart”.
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Mar 27, '07, Tehelka

Pathology of the Communal Right

	A new idea is suddenly becoming fashionable in a section of our media: namely, “secularism vs. communalism” is no longer a major fault-line in India; all our parties, barring the Left, now compete on the same terrain, to which free market-driven economic “modernisation” and governance are central. This is of a piece with other dubious claims: The Bharatiya Janata Party has effectively abandoned Hindutva. The BJP-Akali alliance won in Punjab largely on “secular” issues. Narendra Milosevic Modi has put the 2002 Gujarat pogrom behind himself and made “development” into the state’s hallmark.
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Mar 26, '07

After Nandigram’s Black Wednesday - The Left’s moment of truth

	West Bengal’s Left Front government has barely pulled back from a potentially self-destructive disaster following the Nandigram carnage by adopting an 8-point agreement between all its partners, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM). The agreement acknowledges that the Nandigram incident of Wednesday, March 14, in which 14 people were gunned down, “was tragic and the government will be careful to ensure that such an incident is not repeated.” It says the government won’t “acquire any land in Nandigram for any industry” and that the police “will be withdrawn from Nandigram in phases”.
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Mar 23, '07, Frontline

Cleaning up after Mashelkar

	Former Council of Scientific and Industrial Research director general R.A. Mashelkar has brought disgrace upon India’s scientific establishment by producing a tawdry, poorly argued, unbalanced and pro-Big Business report on India’s patents law, at the core of which lies rank plagiarism. Mashelkar has withdrawn the discredited report of the “Technical Expert Group on Patent Law Issues”, which he headed. He says he did this to uphold “scientific ethics”. But he continues to say: “I stand by the report and its findings, 100 percent…”
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Mar 12, '07

‘Surge’ Triggers More Instability - The US has failed in Iraq

	As the United States-led occupation forces in Iraq continue their new anti-insurgent offensive, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government appears shaky. Its possible collapse will signify the US’s greatest political failure in Iraq since its invasion in 2003. It will greatly compound the disaster that Washington’s Iraq strategy has become. Yet, such collapse could come about if Mr al-Maliki yields to US pressure to reshuffle his Cabinet and end his dependence on the anti-American Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s supporters.
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Mar 10, ‘07, The News International

US’s failing Iraq strategy

	When the United States bullies its allies, and even its own puppets, it does so in the crudest possible manner. Pakistan may have a lesson to draw from Iraq here. As the US-led occupation forces in Iraq continue their anti-insurgency offensive, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government is shaky. Its collapse will signify the US’s greatest political failure in Iraq. This could happen if al-Maliki yields to US pressure to end his dependence on the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
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Mar 10, ‘07, Khaleej Times

The US is courting disaster in Iraq

	The United States’ political-military failure in Iraq will have terrible consequences for the entire world. And the US seems to be failing—badly. While its occupation forces continue their anti-insurgent offensive, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government appears shaky. Its collapse will signify the US’s greatest political failure in Iraq. This could happen if al-Maliki yields to US pressure to end his dependence on Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
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Mar 5, '07

After The Northern Shocks - Congress gathers the pieces

	It was a virtually foregone conclusion that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav would win the vote of confidence which he himself initiated in the state Assembly to counter the Congress’s campaign for his dismissal. And win he did—convincingly, for the 22nd time in 3½ years!
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Mar 2, '07, Frontline

Mulayam’s real Achilles’ Heel

	By the time these lines appear in print, the Centre may have dismissed the government of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav under Article 356 of the Constitution. The Congress has already prepared the ground for this ill-advised move. It might at maximum be deterred by the opposition of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which rightly says that there are no Constitutional grounds for doing so.
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Feb 27, '07, Tehelka

Sham Lal: Life through Letters

	If journalism, as has been said, is literature in a hurry, then Sham Lal was amongst the most accomplished practitioners of literature anywhere. He was without doubt one of the greatest scholar-editors and literacy critics the media world has ever produced—and not just in India. Yet, it is not easy to describe or define Sham Lal. He was of course “the editor’s editor”, someone who set exemplary standards of quality in analytical writing and of reliability and solidity in newspaper publishing. Few editors matched his professional integrity.
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Feb 27, '07, Biblio

Sham Lal: The Ultimate Bibliophile

	Sham Lal and his legendary column, “Life and Letters”, were intimately, inextricably related to each other. Sham Lal lived his life through letters—the world of words, ideas and concepts, or the realm of the mind. Indeed, life for him was letters.
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Feb 26, '07

Drifting Into Nuclear Blunderland - Scrap the Haripur plant!

	After Singur and Nandigram, the West Bengal government has opened another Pandora’s Box with a proposal to build a giant nuclear power station, India’s largest atomic plant, at Haripur in East Medinipur district. The project is a Central government initiative. But it enjoys considerable support from the state’s Left Front government, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-CPM).
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Feb 23, '07, Frontline

Peace Diplomacy on Test

	The likelihood of an attack by the United States and/or Israel on Iran’s nuclear installations has risen sharply and dangerously since President Bush’s January 10 “surge” speech. As a 50-ship flotilla led by two aircraft carriers is mobilised in Iran’s vicinity, U.S. troops in Iraq are moving from a “catch and release” policy practised for over a year in respect of “suspected Iranian agents”, to a “kill or capture” approach. The “surge” of 21,500 additional troops won’t alter the US’s ability to “pacify” Iraq; they will probably target “suspect” Iranians.
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Feb 9, '07, Frontline

A Doomsday Warning

	So inured have middle class Indians become to the tangible possibility of mass destruction that nuclear weapons can wreak upon the world even today that most of our media blacked out a “mainstream” Western-origin story pertaining to the issue, which quoted The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, one of the world’s most respected journals on science and security.
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Jan 31, ‘07, Inter Press Service

High stakes in attack on Indian patent law

	As a legal battle launched by the Swiss pharmaceuticals multinational Novartis against India’s patents law warms up, health activists are gearing up to mount a campaign against drug monopolies and the people’s right to medicines at affordable prices. At stake is not just the fate of the Indian drug industry, described as “the pharmacy of the developing world”, but the life and well-being of hundreds of millions the world over.
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Jan 30, ‘07, Inter Press Service

India upgrades ties with Russia, Cautiously

	Even though India attaches disproportionately high importance to building a close “strategic partnership” with the United States, it has begun the process of strengthening its relations with Russia, its friend from the Cold War days. The invitation to President Vladmir Putin to be the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations last Friday was only the most obvious, if superficial, manifestation of this. Yet, far more important changes may be under way, which will upgrade Indo-Russian relations through greater political coordination and cooperation in respect of energy, besides closer military relations.
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Jan 29, '07

From Singur to Nandigram & Beyond - Development as dispossession

	If and when ordinary mortals like you and me buy land, we have to search high and low for an affordable piece, hire brokers, make several trips to different sites, and borrow bank loans, which we must repay through our nose over 10 or 15 years. Besides these high transaction costs in time and money, we must pay stamp duty to the government, which is usually a good eight percent of the land’s value. None of this applies to India’s biggest business house (and one of its oldest industrial families), namely, the Tatas—at least as far as the Singur car project is concerned. The Tatas are no ordinary mortals.
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Jan 26, '07, Frontline

The Wages of Imperial Hubris

	When President George W. Bush welcomed the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as “an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy”, he could not have known what an ugly word “democracy” has become in Iraq thanks to its occupation and systematic brutalisation. Going by what Iraq-born novelist Haifa Zangana says, in Iraq, “democracy is coming back like a joke. If you want to say a bad word about someone, you say they’re democratic. What Bush and Blair have achieved … is they’ve killed democracy.” Zangana should know. A dissident, she suffered imprisonment under Hussein.
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Jan 19, ’07, Inter Press Service

Doomsday clock signals grave nuclear danger

	The Chicago-based ‘Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ (BAS) has moved the minute hand of the legendary Doomsday Clock forward by two minutes to show that the world is now only five minutes away from the ultimate catastrophe, or the end of civilisation, symbolically represented by the midnight hour. The decision to change the Clock’s setting was made by the Bulletin’s board of directors in consultation with its board of sponsors, which includes 18 Nobel laureates. The new position of the minute hand signifies a call upon world leaders to take urgent action in favour of nuclear disarmament.
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Jan 15, ‘07, Inter Press Service

India-Pakistan ties set to improve, slowly

	India and Pakistan have resumed their bilateral dialogue in earnest and will hold the next (fourth) round of talks in two months’ time following a meeting of their bilateral “joint commission” in February. However, progress in improving mutual relations is likely to be slow, especially on the thorny issue of Kashmir. India’s Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee made his maiden visit to Pakistan last weekend. During the visit, the first one by an Indian Minister of External Affairs in 15 months, Mukherjee met his counterpart Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri and had a 70-minute tete-a-tete with President Pervez Musharraf.
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Jan 15, '07

Tata Lobbies For Dow Chemicals - More injustice for Bhopal

	Judged even by a charitable yardstick, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s record on environmental matters is poor, if not appalling. While paying lip service to the cause of reversing global warming, the government has refused targeted reductions in India’s own greenhouse gas emissions, which are rising almost four times faster than the global average. Instead, it’s recklessly promoting private transport and energy-intensive appliances such as air-conditioners and washing machines.
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Jan 13, ‘07, The News International

India readying for big moves?

	As Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee begins his visit to Pakistan, is there reason for hoping that India is readying for effecting a major change of stance towards its neighbours and that it is getting more serious than ever about achieving a rapprochement with Pakistan? Does Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s remark that he would like to see a day when “one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul” mean something?
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Jan 13, ‘07, Khaleej Times

Tata-Dow alliance will further subvert justice for Bhopal

	Judged by any objective yardstick, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s environmental record is poor. While paying lip-service to reversing global warming, it has refused targeted reductions in India’s greenhouse emissions, which are rising almost four times faster than the global average. It’s recklessly promoting private transport and energy-intensive air-conditioning and other wasteful technologies.
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Jan 13, ‘07, Inter Press Service

Is India abandoning the Raj mantle?

	India is fashioning a major shift in its relations with its smaller neighbours Bhutan and Nepal by revising bilateral treaties which embody asymmetry, inequality and imbalance. The agreements were inherited from the British Raj and retain a deeply colonial impress. The first restructuring of India’s relations is taking place in the case of the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan (pop 700,000), India’s smallest contiguous neighbour.
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Jan 11, ‘07, Inter Press Service

Ratcheting up the Nuclear Ante

	The stunning story by the London ‘Sunday Times' alleging that Israel has drawn up plans to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities with nuclear weapons has focused attention on the growing global nuclear danger and on the worsening situation in the Middle East. It also raises many questions of critical importance. Is the Israeli plan credible, akin to its 1981 attack which destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor? Does it have the tacit backing of the United States, and at least represent a common approach shared by Tel Aviv and neocons in the United States? What will be the impact of such an attack on the Middle East? And what does the possibility of a nuclear strike mean for the prospect of ridding the world of these terror weapons?
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Jan 8, '07

Saddam’s Execution Was Illegal, Vengeful - Victor’s (in)justice

	The hanging of Saddam Hussein was an outrageous instance of “victor’s justice”, on top of a mountain of atrocities in Iraq, beginning with its unjust and illegal invasion. It was a colossal political miscalculation by the United States and its puppet regime in Baghdad to execute Mr Hussein on the first day of Eid-al-Adha. This aggravates the grave crisis in which the Bush administration's West Asia strategy finds itself.
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Jan 6, '07, Inter Press Service

Hanging strengthens case for global criminal court

	The manner in which former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged has provoked revulsion and criticism in different parts of the world. Those who oppose the death penalty on principle have been joined by critics of the process of his trial and those who are appalled by the timing of his execution on the first day of Eid-al-Adha, which marks a holy period in the Muslim calendar.
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Jan 3, '07, Inter Press Service

India, Pakistan: Serious move towards talks on Kashmir?

	A month after President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan proposed a four-point formula to resolve the troubled question of Kashmir jointly with India, exploratory contacts between the two governments have gathered momentum. Their efforts at reconciling mutual differences are likely to get a boost during a planned visit to Pakistan next week by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee. But the top leaders of the two countries will have to resolutely counter their critics from the Right and take bold, imaginative initiatives if the efforts are to bear fruit.
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Jan 3, '07

Back To Hindutva And Hatred - BJP's unresolved crisis

	If there is one political party in India which knows how to create the impression that it’s laying down the national agenda when it isn’t, it’s surely the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). That’s the message its national council meeting in Lucknow sent out when Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee declared that “the road to power in New Delhi passes via Lucknow” and exhorted the party to win the coming elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
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