March 29, 2008

As Beijing continues to systematically crush the Tibetan people’s latest uprising coinciding with the 49th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan upsurge and the Chinese leadership persists in spouting venom at the Tibetan people’s spiritual head, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, using the term “Dalai clique” to denounce him, the Tibetan Government-in-exile has disclosed that an estimated 140 persons were killed in the unrest in Tibet as well as the neighbouring provinces of Gansu and Sichuan. (…)

Beyond the spin the Chinese Government has put on the Tibetan unrest and the world’s reaction to it is a central problem: has Beijing the suppleness and wisdom to alter its monolithic view of how China should be governed? Deng Xiaoping had the stature and vision to improvise the Hong Kong experiment of “one country, two systems”. His successors in the shape of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao have failed to measure up to their responsibilities thus far.
For one thing, the Chinese authorities are (…)

While the US position in the former Soviet republics, which once constituted the formidable USSR before the 1991 disintegration, has considerably weakened over the years, Georgia has, in its latest presidential election in January this year, witnessed the return to power of President Saakashvili, perhaps the most brazenly loyal friend of Washington in the region whose antipathy to Moscow does not bear repetition.
This unrepentant pro-American head of state, whose Georgian citizenship (…)

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Froest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 received assent of the President on December 29, 2006 but came into force only on December 31, 2007. In the meantime the draft Rules of the Act were published on July 19, 2007; but it was only after strident agitation by political parties and activists calumniating in massive mobilisation of tribal peoples from different parts of the country that a much diluted set of rules was finalised and (…)

Rene Magritte, the celebrated Belgian surrealist painter, once painted an apple and wrote on it, “This is not an apple.” He did the same on a pipe. Today, he could as well paint his country, Belgium, and certainly Kosovo, the youngest nation in the world, and write, “This is not a country.” Belgium is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, with its majority Dutch-speaking, many French-speaking and few German-speaking citizens unable to decide what and for whom the state (…)

The people in the Amu Darya region in northern Afghanistan would vouchsafe that General Rashid Dostum’s behaviour can be depended on as an unfailing barometer of their country’s political climate. The tough Uzbek leader from Shibirghan keenly reacts when tensions begin to mount in his country. The brief three-year spell between 1998 and 2001 was an exception when the Taliban regime forced him into exile in Ankara, Turkey. But no sooner had the September 11, 2001 attacks taken place, Dostum (…)

Like Bollyood movies, political productions out of New Delhi can at times be climax-drenched, albeit unpredictably. One such tediously repetitive episode was around the choice of the 2008 Padma awards, India’s highest state honours. The new and ludicrous aspect was the out-of-etiquette campaign from political quarters. But it must be said that the Left—the Communist Parties in particular—kept consciously insulated from this tamasha.
There is no point in blaming President Pratibha Patil (…)

The Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2005 promises to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority. This Act is supposed to enable people to responsibly scrutinise government officials and legal processes. The Act emanates from what the Indian Constitution guarantees itself. Under Article 19 (1) (a) the Constitution guarantees every citizen freedom of speech and expression with certain restrictions. Logically to allow the exercise of freedom of speech and (…)

The BJP leader, L.K. Advani, is right in stating, as he did in Madras on March 21, that the bomb blasts in Bombay and Calcutta had nothing to do with the Ayodhya issue. At the same time it would be naïve to claim that the communal upheaval that came in the wake of the Ayodhya happenings on December 6, did not provide the ideal setting for the blasts in Bombay on March 12. The general environment of violence in the country certainly got a fillip from the uninhibited demonstration of violence (…)

[(BOOK REVIEW)]
Political Violence and the Police in India by K.S. Subramanian; Sage Publication India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi; pages 257; price: 350.
No civilised society can survive in peace, no citizen can live in haven with happy human rights without an exceedingly pragmatic and well-grounded and executive instrumentality, especially disciplined police personnel with absolute integrity, intelligence, and learning in law, technology and training capable enough to beat the cleverest (…)