Nomads – yak, sheep, and cattle herders – are conventionally the silent sentinels of the borders. Living close to nature in remote fringes, their sensitivity to movement and change in their isolated terrain and the speed with which they raise the alarm can determine the outcome of a border skirmish. … Read More
As the Prime Minister tries to reassure the nation that he is taking up the sensitive border issue with the visiting Chinese premier Li Keqiang, it would be worth examining why Indian foreign policy often fails to robustly defend national interests against powerful nations. One reason is that we deploy … Read More
The UPA coalition’s ninth anniversary on May 22, already shadowed by serial scams, has come under further cloud as an error in the nomination papers filed by the Prime Minister for a fifth Rajya Sabha term from Assam on May 15, are scrutinized on May 21, 2013. Manmohan Singh had … Read More
Ten days after a narrow electoral victory for the ruling UMNO-Barisan Nasional combine, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak redeemed his election pledges and unveiled his ‘transformation agenda’ by appointing Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) chairman P Waythamoorthy as a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department. Waythamoorthy was also appointed … Read More
Fifteen years after successive governments blithely ignored the Supreme Court’s directive to liberate the Central Bureau of Investigation from political control, the scam-tainted UPA regime, spurred into action after the Apex Court castigated the premier investigating agency as a “caged parrot,” finally set up a Group of Ministers to draft … Read More
As he fed a goat to ward off karmic retribution on Friday, May 10, moments before being asked to resign as Union Minister for Railways, Pawan Kumar Bansal may have rued the high moral ground he seized as Chairman, Parliamentary Committee of Privileges, when he ordered expulsion of 11 Members … Read More
There’s maths and there’s chemistry; fusion brings victory. This is what makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. When you break up the whole, it does not split back to its original parts. Fragmentation creates a new math, a new chemistry, a whole new sum. This is … Read More
Just as it preferred to ignore the recent Chinese intrusion in Ladakh until forced by public opinion, the ruling UPA Government has taken zero cognisance of the dangerous implications of the US Pentagon building – a Tactical Control and Operations Centre at Karachi airport. Ostensibly to monitor and counter drug … Read More
A Defence Minister who cannot read a hospital register recording the date of birth of his Chief of Army Staff can hardly be expected to read a map and discern Chinese inroads to the extent of an admitted 19-kms (some say 30-kms). So it was no surprise that Mr. AK … Read More
The current imbroglio over the Chinese incursion in Ladakh has given citizens an uneasy sense of déjà vu. Now officially admitted as a 19-kilometre ingress, Lt Gen Prakash Katoch says it is actually 30-kilometres. This evokes memories of veteran parliamentarian Mahavir Tyagi’s famed face-off with Jawaharlal Nehru when China was … Read More
