There is consternation in the 16 Cavalry at Samba at the media projection that the officers and men who died in the terrorist attack in the early morning of September 26 were sitting ducks, when in reality they died heroically, putting up a protracted fight in the Officer’s Mess where … Read More
Narendra Modi today blew the Ananta Vijaya, conch shell of Prince Yudhisthira, to announce his march on Delhi as future ruler, though he promised, with Caesar-like modesty, that he would not be king (main nath nahin hoon, das hoon). Castigating the Prime Minister for weakness in projecting India’s power and … Read More
The high security Kathua District Jail and Sub Jail Hira Nagar, where several high profile Pakistani and foreign prisoners are lodged, was the intended target of the terrorist attack and the incident at Samba could have been a coordinated distraction to engage the Army while the fidayeen extracted their comrades, … Read More
At one of independent India’s largest gatherings of party workers charged with responsibility to cajole voters to the polling booths on election day, the BJP under prime ministerial contender Narendra Modi sounded the bugle for a ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’, which he claimed was the unfulfilled dream of Mahatma Gandhi. A galaxy … Read More
The Calcutta High Court’s ruling that the West Bengal Government’s grant of honorariums to imams and muezzins of mosques is unconstitutional deserves closer scrutiny than it has received, as it invokes fundamental Articles of the Constitution, including the principle of secularism, to scuttle the growing tide of appeasement of one … Read More
Communal tensions simmer under the surface of Mamata’s State West Bengal is sitting on a communal tinderbox with the Chief Minister under pressure from the minority community to run the State as per its wishes or face rout at the hustings, and incidents of confrontation between the two major communities … Read More
To the delight of his hosts, Narendra Modi’s presence at the veterans rally at Rewari, Haryana, on September 15, though previously scheduled, metamorphosed into his debut as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections. It coincided with the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s successful test-firing … Read More
Do statutory national bodies such as the National Commission for Women (NCW) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have only cosmetic value, or are they a political tool to help the ruling dispensation at the Centre to harangue or protect State Governments? In over three weeks since the murder … Read More
Lawrence H Summers, President Barack Obama’s favourite for the post of Federal Reserve chief, was forced to withdraw from the race on September 15, as his role as Treasury secretary to President Bill Clinton in undoing the bank regulations that triggered the 2008 market collapse, triggered a revolt in the … Read More
Narendra Modi has pulled off a near impossible feat. Months in advance of the general election being called by an increasingly nervous Congress-led coalition at the Centre, he has managed to transcend the squabbles of long entrenched and rootless power brokers in Delhi, and get anointed as the Bharatiya Janata … Read More
