2010

In a Malayalam feature film of yesteryear, the then reigning comedian and character actor, late S.P. Pillai, is in the role of a small-time gentleman thief. If he is found out with the stolen thing he, in his unperturbed cheerful manner, would say: “Oh is this yours? Then take it.” If the owner makes any noise about it, in his same characteristic calm, casual manner he would respond: “Why then the fuss? The moment I knew that it was yours I gave back the thing to you.”
Some of our (…)

As India completes two decades of its engagement with neo-liberalisation, certain glaring contradictions have come out in the open. Making a marginal departure from its stated objectives derived from the logic of the neo-liberal market and globalisation theories designed to advance the agenda of the powerful global and indigenous dominant forces as adjuncts of globalised capital, the Indian policy establishment has promised a series of welfare steps to reduce the misery, deprivation and (…)

To many of us from Bihar, the election verdict has come as no great surprise. That is the way Bihar is. It carries its baggage of poverty and deprivation patiently or in petty squabbles but once it has discovered the signs of leadership that can change their lives by the evidence of past performance, it pours its heart to them. This time it was Nitish Kumar in whom they found a leader both with vision and guts and the people of Bihar broke all barriers of caste, of high and low, that has (…)

The long-term security document signed between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghanistan on Saturday, November 20 at the alliance’s summit meeting in Lisbon has a 50-50 chance of becoming a historic milestone or ending up as yet another forlorn artefact in the vandalised Kabul museum.
Having come to the region seven years ago on a UN-mandated “out-of-area” operation for hunting down the Al-Qaeda, the Western alliance is suo moto broadening and deepening its “commitment” in (…)

Forty nations are embroiled in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Anyone who travels through the country with Western troops soon realises that NATO forces would have to be increased tenfold for peace to be even a remote possibility. —Ulrich Fichtner in Spiegal online International,May 29, 2008
When will the occupation of Afghanistan by the USA-led NATO end? While the NATO Summit in Lisbon, Portugal in the third week of November gave a timetable for exit, with the end of 2014 as the point (…)

The following poem has been sent to us by Badri Raina, a former Professor of English (now retired), University of Delhi, with a note from him that reads: “This is too painful for plain prose.”
Those that compile lists
of the rich, famous, and powerful
men and women
just missed out on Niira Radia.
Once given that proverbial chance,
Radia made the rich and famous dance
to her competent tune, and made fool
of many vain achievers
without ever going to a management (…)

The closing months of 2010 saw a cascade of corruption cases as never before witnessed in India. All but one of them had a familiar thread running through them. In the Commonwealth Games swindles, the Adarsh housing fraud, the Allahabad High Court’s “Uncle judge” scandal, the PSU bank managers’ bribe-for-loan trickery and the massive land scams in the BJP’s Karnataka, the driving force was old-fashioned human greed. The exception, the Niira Radia tapes, exposed a systemic rot in the vitals (…)

The Government of India appointed three interlocutors to “start dialogue with all groups in Kashmir” and appointed two Task Forces—one for Jammu and the other for Ladakh—“to examine their development needs with particular reference to deficiencies in infrastructure and make suitable recommendations”.
Whatever may be merit of the interlocutors—Dileep Padgoankar, M.M. Ansari and Radha Kumar—their appointment was widely criticised for being light weight and the non-inclusion of a heavyweight (…)

by Firdaus Ahmed
The right of the Army to voice an opinion has been defended by the Minister of State for Defence, Pallam Raju. The background to his defence was Omar Abdullah’s complaint to the Prime Minister on an Army press release a day earlier. The press release indicated that the decision to remove certain bunkers from Srinagar did not have the Army’s concurrence.
The press release had stated: ‘Though it appeared to be a well-considered decision, the latest incident has raised (…)

Why are we not ready to hear what Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has to say? Why is it that he is allowed to be heckled not just in one locale but in each city on the itinerary? Why is the so- called democratic space shrinking so steadily that there seems little room for discussion or for a healthy debate or to even hear what the other has to say? Why is it that those ample relays which are only one-sided, typically babu worded version on the Kashmir Valley ought to be in focus?
There are extremely (…)