On 29 Sept. 2010, an NGO called the Women’s Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA), organised a dialogue titled, Sisters for Peace: Voices from Kashmir, at the UN Conference Hall at Lodi Road, in collaboration with the National Foundation for India and UN Information Centre. When some nationalists arrived … Read More
If there is a clear winner in the vexatious dispute over the Ram Janmabhoomi, it is Truth (satya), which has triumphed in the face of formidable obstacles placed by cussed political actors nurturing communal votebanks, aided and abetted by an army of rapidly secular (read viciously anti-Hindu) fellow travellers in … Read More
Two potentially momentous events occurred almost simultaneously in the previous fortnight – the Kashmir talks and the Ayodhya verdict. Sadly, both ended on a flat note, thanks to the lack of courage and imagination on the part of the Congress party which dominates the UPA coalition at the Centre. The … Read More
Catching a somnolent Indian political and security establishment unawares, the Chinese dragon has taken virtual charge of the strategic Gilgit-Baltistan in the northwest corner of the undivided kingdom of Kashmir. This – like the 38,000 sq. km. in Ladakh connecting Tibet and Xinjiang, and 5000 sq. km. in Shaksgam Valley … Read More
Bismarck understood that the meaning of the concept of separation of Church and State was not that the State should have no religion, nor even that it should not discriminate between citizens on the basis of religion. It was that the Church – hitherto the dominant religio-political entity of European … Read More
In a welcome development for India’s beleaguered forces that are fighting the Naxal-Maoist menace across several states, women cadres have begun to revolt and speak out against the gender abuse by the armed insurgents. Young Shobha Mandi (also known as Uma and Shikha), barely 23, surrendered to the police on … Read More
By the time this article appears in print, the Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister may have resigned or had his government dismissed by Governor N.N. Vohra. Even if he continues in office, Mr Omar Abdullah will be heading a lame duck regime, incapable of controlling the Lashkar-driven violence in the … Read More
The primary constraint to India’s emergence as a Superpower is simply that this is not the natural culmination of a diligently pursued national quest for affirmation and assertion of the civilisational identity and ethos of this ancient land, now a modern nation-state. The idea of an economically rising India as … Read More
Was the alleged rape of an Orissa nun, following the assassination of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four sanyasis in Kandhamal on Krishna Janmasthami, Aug. 23, 2008, an afterthought by missionaries targetted by enraged Hindus? Was it a planned vengeance, aimed at garnering the international spotlight and forcing Chief Minister Naveen … Read More
If there is a reason behind the madness with which Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi blew the dialogue with his Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna, we should look for it on the frontiers of that imploding nation. Not Indian Kashmir, but the western sector – Afghanistan, Iran, even Central Asia, … Read More
