Ms Sushma Swaraj expressed the deep anguish of thousands of Indians with her threat to resign from the Rajya Sabha if the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi seizes the country’s top executive post. Ms. Gandhi had pointedly withdrawn from the prime ministerial stakes in the course of the election campaign in order … Read More
As Iraq gets murkier and Uncle Sam loses credibility in the war on terror, American analysts are waking up to the extent to which Saudi funds have penetrated the nation’s soft underbelly. According to Lee Kaplan, Saudis have pumped massive funds into leading educational institutions as part of a concerted … Read More
A major reason why the West is faltering in its response to Islamic fundamentalism is its attempt to straddle two leaky boats. It struggles to revive a dying Christian ethos as a counterpoint to Islam, and simultaneously clings to post-War artifices like secularism and pluralism. Failure is built into such … Read More
Even as political parties debate whether India is ‘shining,’ a momentous – though unreported – international academic consensus has established that there was no Aryan Invasion of India. This intellectual breakthrough has staggering implications for us as a nation. Not only has a colonial falsehood been overturned, but the origins … Read More
Even disregarding New Delhi’s understandable dismay at the US elevation of Pakistan to the status of major non-NATO ally, there are serious problems with Washington’s approach to the containment of terror. Since the end of the Second World War, America has been undisputed leader of the white western democracies, the … Read More
As we have just observed the anniversary of Women’s Day (March 8), it seems appropriate to examine the status of Indian women through the vicissitudes of time and cull valuable lessons for the future. We need neither glorify nor demonise the past, but should examine it dispassionately to extract such … Read More
A sense of irony grips me as I recollect the late Ramesh Thapar’s contempt for family members who served the British Empire; “toadies,” he would sneer. Impressed by what appeared a rare display of courage, I never forgot the word, partly because it formed part of Thapar’s unique repertoire and … Read More
After decades of puerile rhetoric over dialectics, deconstructionism, modernism, post-modernism, multiculturalism, et al, Europe is finally realizing that it cannot live without fidelity to core values. For even Mammon has social roots, which is why White-dominated multinationals meant ‘free trade’ in the post-World War II era, but out-sourcing to India … Read More
Sonia Gandhi’s fragile but sustained claim to national leadership, underscored by her nervous induction of both children into the Congress party, makes it incumbent upon political analysts to spell out some of the contentious issues associated with nationality and the right to lead a nation. For modern Indians, particularly the … Read More
Recent incidents of bird flu and mad cow disease in leading meat-exporting nations are symptomatic of a much larger civilizational crisis, and must not be brushed aside or treated as mere health or gastronomic matters that should be handled by competent meat inspectors. Discerning citizens worldwide, especially in India, deserve … Read More
