Rarely has a book managed to be so intellectually stimulating and to embody the continuity of tradition and modernity on so seemingly prosaic a discipline as military history as this utterly delightful offering from Maj-Gen Gagandeep Bakshi. The book is as serious as the subject suggests, and the author brings … Read More
Who can save the boat that the boatman is determined to sink? Hindus in Jammu fear the possibility of fresh holocausts as Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s red carpet to terrorists in PoK reinforces the politics of Muslim precedence in J&K, and strengthens Kashmiri Muslim resistance to full integration with … Read More
Ganapati, remover of obstacles, the first deity to be invoked and offered worship – even by the Gods themselves – most likely originated in the forests of Maharashtra region, and is the best example of how the tribal, local, regional, acquired pan-India status in Hindu tradition. Evidence suggests Ganesh’s non-Vedic … Read More
For someone who remembers that Rahul Gandhi’s spontaneous response to Mumbai 2008 was to party all night in honour of the forthcoming nuptials of his pal Samir Sharma, the aam aadmi bonhomie his inner circle contrived in the city on Friday, cut little ice. Political observers like your writer concluded, … Read More
The public campaign against commercial production of BT Brinjal has mercifully picked up amidst fears that the Union Government may succumb to American pressure and approve this toxic seed. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) speedily approved BT Brinjal for environmental release in October 2009, despite growing evidence of the … Read More
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance has, in successive incarnations, been determined to give Muslims and Christians extraordinary precedence and weightage, with a clear long-term objective of driving Hindus out of public spaces. The writer has always maintained that Secularism was imposed upon an unsuspecting nation solely to ensure the negation … Read More
On Jan. 23, the Pakistan Election Commission cancelled the visit of a delegation to New Delhi in a sign that Islamabad intends to escalate the ‘Cricket Row’ in which all 11 Pakistani cricket players in the IPL-3 auction of Jan. 19 were quietly boycotted. Pakistan Chief Election Commissioner Justice Hamid … Read More
Is New Delhi suffering Elite Fatigue Syndrome? This is a Designer Disease, which initially afflicted the Secular Brigade. Like all contagions, it is fast infecting the Hindutva Brigade, at least those sections that struggled to reinvent themselves as ‘secular under my saffron skin’ when the BJP-led NDA pulled the patronage … Read More
A fourth generation descendant of Tamil indentured labour, P. Uthayakumar, HINDRAF legal adviser and secretary general, Human Rights Party Malaysia (HRP), has returned from New Delhi’s Pravasi Bharatiya Divas jamboree to face trial for ‘sedition,’ a charge made by the ruling United Malay National Organisation regime. Advocates Uthayakumar and M. … Read More
New Delhi must end the doublespeak on Jammu & Kashmir and inform the Indian people if there is a covert understanding, under American aegis, to unravel the northern state bit by bit and surreptitiously cede it to Pakistan. A leading national daily on Saturday reported a ‘strong’ Indian reaction to … Read More
