Obama's Monica Moment
The following article, published in Asia Times in June, is reproduced here, with due acknowledgement, as its contents are still relevant.The United States may have administered one of the biggest-ever...
View ArticleOpen Letter to PM and Tamil Nadu CM
Sir and Madam,Today is a historic day for two wrong reasons. First, because on this day, July 16, 1945, the world's first experimental nuclear explosion was conducted at Alamagorodo, USA, as a...
View ArticleThe Survival of Humanity is at Stake
by T. SadashivamThe issue of Development versus Environment has again come in the public discourse because of the Uttarakhand tragedy. Although the debate over development versus environment has been...
View ArticleModi's Catch-22: Caught between Programme and Proclivity
Come to think of it, imagine how many great souls have been done in by their eventual failure to balance within them the claims of nature and culture.Narendra Modi is clearly the latest, and perhaps...
View ArticleArmy Still Dominates Pakistan
It is an open secret that the Army in Pakistan is a peg or two higher than the civilian apparatus. But I saw chinks in its armoury when a commission report was leaked. That the Inter-Services...
View ArticleKalpana Dutt
From N.C.'s WritingsJuly 27 marks the legendary freedom fighter, Kalpana Dutt's birth centenary. On this occasion we remember her and offer our sincere tribute to her abiding memory by reproducing the...
View ArticleMid-Day Meal: Scope of Improvement
by Ritesh DwivediThe National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was launched as a Centrally sponsored scheme on August 15, 1995, initially in 2408 blocks of the country....
View ArticleWill the Criminals and their Patrons heed Judicial Ruling? It's a War
IMPRESSIONSOnly figuratively do legislatures represent the people; in real terms they represent the political class. When a legislature passes an irresponsible law, the political class as a whole...
View ArticleCraziness about FDI
by Pannalal SuranaThe Finance Minister and his officers have become panicky. There has been persistent withdrawal of bond money. The reasons seem to be two-fold. The rupee is falling. So earlier the...
View ArticleAam Aadmi, Poverty Line, Modi's Image
The gulf between the politician and the common citizen, the aam aadmi, is widening by the day. One is getting proof of that almost on a daily basis. But what two spokespersons of the Congress, the...
View ArticleBeyond Reasonable Doubt?: The Conviction of Shahzad Ahmad
DOCUMENTThe following are excerpts from a Report by the Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association on the conviction of Shahzad Ahmad over the Batla House ‘encounter' in which Inspector M.C. Sharma was...
View ArticleLaw-breaking Law-makers are becoming a Serious Threat to our Democracy
IMPRESSIONSThe Allahabad High Court recently banned caste-based public rallies, a core political gimmick in Uttar Pradesh. Within days the UP Public Service Commission announced a new reservation...
View ArticleIn Search of Pakistaniat
BOOK REVIEWby Sajad PadderPakistan—Unique Origins; Unique Destiny? by Javed Jabbar; publisher: National Book Foundation, Islamabad (Pakistan); 2011; pages: 246. The book “Pakistan—Unique Origins;...
View ArticleWomen in Resistance Struggles in Odisha
WOMEN'S WORLDby Ranjana Padhi and Pramodini PradhanOne seldom gets to hear about women's resistance in Odisha, be it in resistance literature or history or the discourse of the contemporary women's...
View ArticleObama's ‘Zero Option' on AfPak is Viable
The Clausewitzean fog of war is thickening in the Hindu Kush. The New York Times reported recently that President Barack Obama is seriously considering a “zero option” for Afghanistan, namely, a total...
View ArticleThe Blurred Lines
The Congress has set a bad precedent. The party has combined two positions: one is that of party official spokesman and the other that of Minister's for Information and Broadcasting. Both have...
View ArticleQuest for Telengana: A Charismatic Socio-Political Movement
by Sreerupa SahaIMax Weber, universally acknowledged to be one of the three most important founding fathers of social science (the other two being Emile Durkheim and Karl Max), located the social...
View ArticleMr Sen
Dear Mr Sen, here is what you forgot:When a party of traders gives,It expects. Thus, Bharat RatnaWas bestowed on you by usNot because we thought youWere great shakes—who biggerAnd better than...
View ArticleTo Talk about Austerity...!
From N.C.'s WritingsThe air is thick with talk about the economic crisis facing the country. The Finance Minister has called it “a grave economic crisis”. “We have not experienced anything similar in...
View ArticleDurga's Suspension, TMC's Feat, Telangana
Two major developments have caught national attention over the last few days.First came the suspension of a young IAS officer of the UP cadre, Durga Shakti Nagpal, the Gautam Buddh Nagar SDM,...
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