The unseemly triumphalism with which the Congress has handled the alleged fake encounter of Mumbai girl Ishrat Jehan and her three companions – smuggler Javed Sheikh and Pakistanis Amjad Ali Rana and Zeeshan Johar – has so muddied the waters that the case can no longer be limited to the … Read More
Caged parrot CBI employs special parameters to investigate case: Mumbai girl Ishrat Jehan and her three male companions were abducted by the Gujarat police at different times, held at different locations, and then brought together for elimination by staged encounter at the outskirts of Ahmedabad on June 15, 2004 … Read More
In view of the sharp twists in the Malegaon blasts cases of 2006 and 2008, completely overturning and making a mockery of investigations by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) and foreign agencies like the US Department of Treasury, some basic questions arise about the functioning and very legality of … Read More
Congress can’t defend decision with bad math, promise of investment The Tamil Nadu chief minister has rightly questioned the legitimacy of the Congress-led UPA government’s decision to virtually double the price of natural gas from April 1, 2014, when its mandate expires in May 2014. Logically, any decision should only … Read More
Kedarnath and Badrinath, two most beloved northern tirthas, have for the past two weeks witnessed an apocalyptic spectacle of pralaya with an enraged god and angry goddess stomping a dance of death in fierce tandem. As clouds burst, mountainsides crumbled, and torrential streams hurtled multistoried buildings, hydel projects, roads, humans … Read More
Maoist sympathiser Sheetal Sathe was granted bail from the Bombay High Court on Thursday, June 27, 2013, on humanitarian grounds (being in an “advanced stage of pregnancy”) after the Public Prosecutor’s office did not oppose the bail plea. Sathe becomes the third Naxalite to receive bail from Justice Abhay Thipsay; … Read More
The unseemly controversy over assistance rendered and offered by a State Chief Minister to flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, particularly the peevish behaviour of the Union Home Minister in trying to obstruct his visit on grounds that it could hinder relief efforts, deserves careful scrutiny on several counts. What is relevant here is … Read More
Modern Indian consciousness about the perils that unchecked deforestation poses to the fragile Himalayan ecology begins with the Chipko movement of 1973, when the hill peoples of the then Uttar Pradesh, now Uttarakhand, offered their lives to preserve their forests, causing shock, awe, and admiration in a somnolent nation. Barely … Read More
In its performance audit of Uttarakhand’s hydropower development through private sector participation for 2008-09, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found that the State’s policy was silent on the vital issue of maintaining downstream flow in the diversion reach – the stretch of the river from the point of diversion … Read More
Senior intelligence officer (RAW), the late B Raman, expressed deep concern over some aspects of the charges made by investigating agencies against some Hindus accused of acts of terrorism against Muslims. Writing on August 7, 2010, Raman noted (Arrest of some Hindus as Terrorists: Curiouser & Curiouser) that in July … Read More
