No matter how liberal a country’s ethos, no matter how depraved and debauched its social reality, no polity in the world will permit a minister or public servant to call for a “Pub Bharo” movement in support of the Christian festival, Valentine’s Day, which falls on 14 February. It is … Read More
The Supreme Court today stands at an historic crossroads: it can choose the path of transparency and public honour, or the one that leads to opacity and doubt. By a curious coincidence, public confidence in some of the Republic’s most trusted institutions is under strain at a difficult moment in … Read More
Sonia Gandhi and her former Left comrades are in the dock in the current turmoil in the Election Commission, although it is true that the crisis began with BJP’s petition to President APJ Abdul Kalam seeking removal of Election Commissioner Navin Chawla on grounds of his pro-Congress affiliations. As if … Read More
Some months ago, mocked by orthodox international groups for hosting the world’s largest Kartikeya mūrti, Muslim-majority Malaysia felt stressed enough to plan a Bamiyan-style demolition. The iconoclasm was staved off only by the fear that this would expose Malaysia as a grim and joyless hub in Islam in South East … Read More
Among the two major coalition formations, the BJP has the distinct advantage of having an agreed prime ministerial candidate; political parties that may join the NDA in the post-election period will have no interest in re-opening this issue. The Congress, by contrast, has already hinted that Dr. Manmohan Singh will … Read More
On the eve of another Republic Day, we face the tragic continuity between a freedom struggle of litigants to the British Crown and a contemporary regime of supplicants before imperial Western capitals. Nothing underlines the sad disconnect between the challenges facing the nation and the Marie Antoinette-like nature of the … Read More
Odd appears to be the new normal with the Indian Judiciary. It is at odds with every other institution, at odds with established convention, and proud to be so. The gains to the nation, if any, from the Judiciary’s sudden desire to defy all norms and emerge as primus inter … Read More
In a world that dithers in the face of minority separateness and secessionism, tiny Sri Lanka has demonstrated lion-hearted resoluteness in crushing the three decade old Tamil insurgency, refusing to surrender to minority unreasonableness in order to maintain national unity. For an India which made its armed forces fight with … Read More
The Pioneer yesterday carried a photograph of Telugu Desam Party chief Chandrababu Naidu being solemnly blessed in a Hyderabad church by Archbishop M. Joji. The natal families of the TDP boss and his wife, daughter of late Chief Minister and TDP founder N.T. Rama Rao, have hitherto had an unbroken … Read More
Afzal Guru of India, convicted for his role in the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001, and Ajmal Amir Kasab of Pakistan, seen striking terror at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal on November 26, 2008, are the symbols of twenty-first century jihad against India. Besides a common commitment to jihad, their … Read More
