E d i t o r i a l s |
 A sad judgment | | 2004-01-14 | Editorial | The Indian Express | | On December 26, when the Gujarat High Court gave an oral judgment dismissing the state government’s appeal and prayer for a retrial in the notorious Best Bakery case, this newspaper held back from commenting editorially on it. |  | |
| Two Dalit boys beaten to death | | 2003-12-25 | PTI | Hindustan Times | | Two teenage Dalit boys were allegedly beaten to death by a village Pradhan in the Harora assembly constituency of Saharanpur district. The area is said to be tense after the incident. | | | |
| Anti-US Feeling Will Unite the Arabs | | 2003-05-29 | Editorial | The Times of india | | Arab solidarity could be a load of rubbish, judging by how easily the Arabs have accepted the US occupation of Iraq. Before George Bush sent his troops into Iraq, there was much talk of the Arab world going up in flames. There hasn't been a squeak from the region. But wait a minute | | | |
| Like it or Not, US | | 2003-05-16 | EDITORIAL | The Times Of India | | Some two weeks ago, reports of an American “road map” on Kashmir predictably raised a storm in New Delhi and led the US mission in the Capital to issue a quick and complete denial. But make no mistake: This time around, Washington is dead serious about resolving Kashmir, and doing it in double quick time | | | |
| Million Mobilities | | 2003-05-16 | EDITORIAL | The Times Of India | | If reports are to be believed, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, is alive and bestowing largesse on the emigre Indian community in the US. According to a Merrill Lynch survey, there are 200,000 millionaires of Indian origin in the country. This means that one out of every nine NRIs or PIOs (Persons of Indian Origin) in America is a millionaire as compared to only two per cent of millionaires for the total population of the US. | | | |
| Shooting blindly | | 2003-05-15 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | The American decision to shoot looters in Baghdad cannot but cause deep disquiet. It’s evident that the inability to stop the anarchy in the Iraqi capital has forced the US to swing to the other extreme compared to its earlier inexplicably lackadaisical behaviour | | | |
| Chickens return to roost | | 2003-05-12 | AG Noorani | Hindustan Times | | The VHP has launched a campaign for legislation to build a Ram mandir at Ayodhya. The BJP’s plea to its mentors in the Sangh parivar on May 2 was that such a law was “not possible without a majority in Parliament”. | | | |
| Communalisation of Education | | 2003-05-07 | MRIDULA MUKHERJEE, ADITYA MUKHERJEE | Outlook India | | The current controversy over the nature of history textbooks to be prescribed in schools reflects two completely divergent views of the Indian nation. One of the most important achievements of the Indian national movement, perhaps the greatest mass movement in world history, was the creation of the vision of an open, democratic, secular and civil libertarian state which was to promote a modern scientific outlook in civil society in independent India. The authors of the NCERT textbooks who are now under attack share this vision of the Indian nation. Over the last fifty years after independence a valiant effort was made by the Indian people to translate this vision into a reality in India. It is this great effort which is now being threatened by communal forces, which had little to do with the national movement and, in fact, through their loyalist policies, ended up weakening it. These communal forces are now attempting to use history textbooks as instruments to further their vision of a narrow, sectarian and 'Talibanised' Hindu nation. | | | |
| Falling for it, hook, trishul and sinker | | 2003-05-06 | EDITORIAL | Hindustan Times | | National Commission for Minorities Chairman Tarlochan Singh must be extremely naive. After meeting VHP leaders — following complaints from minority commissions and members of the Muslim community against the organisation’s trishul diksha programme in Rajasthan — Mr Singh is cocksure that they will refrain from any activities or remarks that may hurt the sentiments of any minority community | | | |
| Bombs Away | | 2003-05-06 | EDITORIAL | The Times of India | | In the past few years, General Musharraf has caught New Delhi by surprise so many times — from Kargil to Agra — that it should by now cease to make news. Take his interview to a private Pakistani television channel on Monday. | | | |
| Looking through Camp X-Ray | | 2003-05-06 | EDITORIAL | Hindustan Times | | As many as 660 people from 42 countries are still being detained by the US at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for interrogation purposes since the end of America’s military campaign in Afghanistan. The diplomatic problem being faced by Washington as a result of insistent queries from these countries in the past 16 months is shortly expected to lead to the release of about a dozen of the detainees. | | | |
| The parivar’s united front | | 2003-05-05 | EDITORIAL | Hindustan Times | | The BJP leadership has lately sought to emphasise that Hindutva remains its mascot though the party is somewhat hamstrung by being the leader of the ruling alliance whose members may be at odds with the Hindu supremacist ideology. | | | |
| The parivar’s united front | | 2003-05-05 | EDITORIAL | Hindustan Times | | The BJP leadership has lately sought to emphasise that Hindutva remains its mascot though the party is somewhat hamstrung by being the leader of the ruling alliance whose members may be at odds with the Hindu supremacist ideology. | | | |
| Initiative Kashmir | | 2003-05-05 | EDITORIAL | The Times Of India | | The pendulum of Indo-Pak relations seems to be once again swinging towards the positive side. But before we resume the breathless prose and the poetic musings, let’s remember that we’ve been here before — and it wasn’t long before both sides were back to trading accusations and snarling threats | | | |
| Shifting dunes and bases | | 2003-05-05 | Maroof Raza | Hindustan Times | | There have been many explanations about America’s motivations to fight a war in Iraq, from oil and democracy to lucrative construction contracts for American companies. | | | |
| Not for a fistful of barrels | | 2003-05-05 | Rakesh Krishnan | Hindustan Times | | On the Arab street, in world cabinets and even among many US opinion makers, the opinion is that America invaded Iraq for its oil | | | |
| Initiative Kashmir | | 2003-05-05 | EDITORIAL | The Times Of India | | The pendulum of Indo-Pak relations seems to be once again swinging towards the positive side. But before we resume the breathless prose and the poetic musings, let’s remember that we’ve been here before — and it wasn’t long before both sides were back to trading accusations and snarling threats | | | |
| Shifting dunes and bases | | 2003-05-05 | Maroof Raza | Hindustan Times | | There have been many explanations about America’s motivations to fight a war in Iraq, from oil and democracy to lucrative construction contracts for American companies. | | | |
| Not for a fistful of barrels | | 2003-05-05 | Rakesh Krishnan | Hindustan Times | | On the Arab street, in world cabinets and even among many US opinion makers, the opinion is that America invaded Iraq for its oil | | | |
| Spectre of SARS | | 2003-05-02 | EDITORIAL | The Times Of India | | Despite our official pronouncements to the contrary, WHO has now declared India a SARS-free zone. Health minister Sushma Swaraj reacted to this by invoking literally 'sweet' blessings -- "aap ke mooh mein ghee shakkar," she told an uncomprehending WHO official in New Delhi | | | |
| Blind spot in Iraq | | 2003-05-01 | Bhaskar Ghose | Hindustan Times | | In one of the most vitriolic articles to have been written on what has recently happened in Iraq, John Pilger wrote in The Independent on April 20: “The unthinkable is being normalised. The American essayist Edward Herman wrote: ‘There is usually a division of labour in doing and rationalising the unthinkable, with the direct brutalising and killing done by one set of individuals... others working on improving technology (a better crematory gas, a longer burning and more adhesive napalm, bomb fragments that penetrate flesh in hard-to-trace patterns). It is the function of the experts, and the mainstream media, to normalise the unthinkable for the general public.’ ” | | | |
| Our French connection | | 2003-04-30 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | India’s experience in tightrope walking acquired during the days of non-alignment may be of considerable help in keeping its balance at a time of tension between the US and France. During her visit to India, French Defence Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie saw a similarity of views between Paris and New Delhi regarding the dangers of a unipolar world. But India may like to keep its own counsel to avoid rubbing the US the wrong way. At a time when the US has clarified that France will have to pay a price for having opposed the war in Iraq, it is obvious that some kind of a division is in the making. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has already warned against such a Cold War-style rupture. | | | |
| Roll over CNN | | 2003-04-30 | Michael Wolff | Hindustan Times | | Everybody loves al-Jazeera. Even though we’ve bombed them (in Baghdad and before that in Kabul), we love them. | | | |
| Breaking news into opinion | | 2003-04-30 | K.N. Hari Kumar | Hindustan Times | | The most powerful State on earth went to war, ostensibly to disarm a militarily weak country of WMD | | | |
| Yes, but where are the Saddam look-alikes? | | 2003-04-29 | COLLATERAL DAMAGE/SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN | The Times Of India | | Ever since the fall of Baghdad, everyone's been asking where's Saddam and where are the weapons of mass destruction he allegedly had. Fair enough. But the question that intrigues me the most is this: Where on earth are his famed look-alikes? If Saddam is dead, did they all, to the last man, die with him? And if he's slipped out of the country -- to Syria, Belarus, wherever -- did he manage to take each and every one of his replicas with him? Are there, even as we speak, a dozen Saddams sadly sipping vodka (doubles, no doubt) in some seedy bar in Minsk or Vitebsk? | | | |
| Lethal weapons | | 2003-04-24 | Vishal Arora | Hindustan times | | Distribution of trishuls that are six to eight inches long and sharp enough to kill is now rightly banned as per the notification issued by the Rajasthan government under Section 4 of the Arms Act, 1959. | | | |
| Look, the WMD trick! | | 2003-04-24 | Editorial | Hindustan times | | The controversy about Iraq’s putative weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is becoming murkier. While no trace of these has yet been found, the UN’s chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has levelled charges against both the US and Britain which are highly disturbing, to say the least. | | | |
| The lassi louts | | 2003-04-24 | Indrajit Hazra | Hindustan times | | It’s only by a quirk of fate — and a wink of history — that Praveenbhai Togadia isn’t Comrade Praveen Togadia. Instead of doling out fiery speeches against Muslims and liberals and extolling Hindus to shake off their ‘second-class citizenship’, he could easily have been doling out fiery speeches against the bourgeoisie and liberals and extolling workers to shake off the fetters put on them by their class enemies. | | | |
| Lessons from Iraq | | 2003-04-21 | Brahma Chellaney | Hindustan Times | | Aggression pays, and naked aggression pays handsomely. That may sound like the moral of America’s occupation of Iraq after a faster-than-anticipated military triumph that threatens to herald a more muscular US foreign policy. That moral may be reinforced by the way the Bush administration has sought to rapidly turn Iraq into a profit hub for US construction, energy and other firms. | | | |
| Stabbing at communal harmony | | 2003-04-18 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | Is Rajasthan the next communal flashpoint after Gujarat? In the recent past, several places in Rajasthan have witnessed ugly scenes which stopped short of riots mainly due to a watchful administration | | | |
| Bush's Men-o'-War: Ideologues of Neo-Imperialism | | 2003-04-16 | VIKAS SINGH | The Times Of India | | By now, we've heard that cliche about the US invasion of Iraq being all about oil at least a million times. There's also an interesting spin, to the effect that it's actually about protecting the dominance of the dollar by ensuring that oil-exporting nations don't start denominating their trade in euros, as Saddam's Iraq did. | | | |
| Digression in Damascus | | 2003-04-16 | Editorial | Hindustan times | | The US intervention in Vietnam was motivated by the fear of what was called the ‘domino theory’ which said that the success of the communists in Indochina would be followed by their incursions into other countries of the region. | | | |
| US Invasion Will Fuel Jehad | | 2003-04-15 | Editorial | the Times Of India | | Terrorism is created not because people provide it with funds or safe sanctuary but because there exists a real or imagined political grievance. Terrorists for the most part are not mercenaries — although those in power like to describe them as such — but motivated, misguided young people. | | | |
| Weapons of Disruption | | 2003-04-15 | Editorial | the Times Of India | | On the weekend, a crucial disclosure came from Hans Blix, UN’s chief weapons inspector and head of the team that went into Iraq to find and destroy its weapons of mass destruction (WMD). | | | |
| Hindutva and minorities | | 2003-04-14 | Asghar Ali Engineer | PUCL Bulletin | | After the carnage in Gujarat and subsequent victory of Narendra Modi-led BJP in Gujarat has intensified threat of Hindutva forces. The Hindutva forces not only celebrated the victory in Gujarat but also declared their intention to repeat the Gujarat model in other states in coming elections. It is not so surprising after all that even the Prime Minister Vajpayee when asked about it, confirmed it. When reporters asked him would you repeat Gujarat model in other states he said, "Will Godhra be repeated"? | | | |
| Not meddling, just fiddling | | 2003-04-14 | Editorial | Hindustan times | | With a regime changed in Baghdad, it was an ancient civilisation’s turn to be a war victim. That was not, however, how it was planned. With the initial hiccups of unexpected resistance out of the way and jubilant Iraqis welcoming the self-described 'liberators', a seamless transition from despotic rule to dependable democracy was supposed to have been on the cards. | | | |
| United States vs Nations | | 2003-04-14 | A.G. Noorani | Hindustan times | | Last year, American Vice- President Dick Cheney advised President George W. Bush to tell the United Nations: “You are not important.” To keep up appearances, the US moved the UN Security Council, secured a resolution on false assurance, but reneged on them once it found it could not secure its backing for a war on Iraq. | | | |
| Kashmir is not Iraq | | 2003-04-14 | Editorial | Indian Express | | We must agree with the US State Department position that Kashmir is not Iraq. There was no war through terrorism being waged against the US or by Iraq. And Kashmir is part of India and hence cannot be compared with Iraq. | | | |
| Iraq needs free press, free markets | | 2003-04-14 | SWAMINOMICS/SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR | The Times Of India | | I am shocked and awed. The Iraq war seems as good as over in just three weeks, half the length of the 1991 Gulf War. | | | |
| On the superpower highway | | 2003-04-14 | Editorial | Hindustan times | | It is heartening to learn that India’s economy is in the same league as that of the US, China and Japan. For the second time, it has been ranked the world’s fourth-biggest economy by the World Bank’s purchasing power parity (PPP) index. | | | |
| Under World | | 2003-04-14 | David Zucchino | Indian Express | | American troops have discovered a vast underground bunker complex equipped with pressurized offices and bedrooms, gas masks and chemical protective gear, and enough sophisticated chemical and biological decontamination equipment to protect hundreds — perhaps thousands — of senior Iraqi leaders and commanders. | | | |
| Filling the vacuum | | 2003-04-11 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | The relief and elation felt by the US-led coalition forces over the relatively easy ‘conquest’ of Baghdad must have been diminished by the eruption of what the UN has described as ‘anarchy’. | | | |
| Post-war Games | | 2003-04-07 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | What next after the war in Iraq? From the look of things, another battle is coming up: For the control of post-war Iraq. And this battle may be even more one-sided than the last one, with the US forging ahead on all fronts, leaving the United Nations, and most of Europe, including Tony Blair's Britain, watching from the sidelines. | | | |
| BJP disoriented | | 2003-04-07 | Editorial | Hindustan times | | Perhaps the most unusual thing about public life in a democracy is its bewildering dynamics that no model of corporate governance or blueprint for improving institutionalised hierarchies can hope to capture. | | | |
| Post-war Games | | 2003-04-07 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | What next after the war in Iraq? From the look of things, another battle is coming up: For the control of post-war Iraq. And this battle may be even more one-sided than the last one, with the US forging ahead on all fronts, leaving the United Nations, and most of Europe, including Tony Blair's Britain, watching from the sidelines. | | | |
| BJP disoriented | | 2003-04-07 | Editorial | Hindustan times | | Perhaps the most unusual thing about public life in a democracy is its bewildering dynamics that no model of corporate governance or blueprint for improving institutionalised hierarchies can hope to capture. | | | |
| Baghdad Blogbuster | | 2003-04-04 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | It’s an old adage that truth is the first casualty of war. But surely the American invasion of Iraq would be different? After all, this was billed as the first prime-time television war. | | | |
| Been there, done that | | 2003-04-03 | Editorial | The Indian Express | | VHP general secretary Praveen Togadia was threat-making as usual when he let it slip. There are only two courses left, he announced at a press meet, now that the Supreme Court has refused to allow the government to allow the VHP to have its way in Ayodhya | | | |
| Awe and Shucks: An online encounter | | 2003-04-02 | VINAY KAMAT & VIKAS SINGH | The Times Of India | | How does one capture the lingo and concerns of the new generation? Intrigued by that question, we stumbled upon an online chat between two feisty, irreverent youngsters. One from Delhi, the other from Bangalore. Their freeflowing talkathon reveals the topics that obsess them and make them what they are. But unlike the lingo they revel in, their lives are more structured; their views on war are clearer than sand storms; their careers are closer to their hearts than hobbies; their growing world is filled with fun, wit, and purpose. Hears the intimate chit chat. | | | |
| Freedom Fail | | 2003-04-02 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | "The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought..." So affirmed the US supreme court judge Anthony M Kennedy on April 16, 2002. | | | |
| Intrusion not acceptable | | 2003-04-02 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | Human rights are a difficult concept to express — let alone measure. Yet, if liberal freedoms are to have any meaning, the world must come together to protect the human rights of all men and women, no matter which country they live in. | | | |
| Shades of War | | 2003-04-01 | Editorial | the Times Of India | | The Iraq war continues to pose a challenge to the Indian government, and more so as the latter comes under different kinds of pressures — from the opposition, the BJP and, lately, the RSS | | | |
| Politic Judgment | | 2003-04-01 | Editorial | the Times Of India | | In the event, the Supreme Court has judged in favour of maintaining the status quo in the Ayodhya case. Confirming its earlier order of March 2002, the court has categorically ruled out any religious activity on the 67 acres of "undisputed" land that surrounds the so-called disputed site where the Babri masjid once stood, till such time as the Allahabad high court decides on the title suits. | | | |
| War Fare | | 2003-03-28 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | In war, expect the unexpected. That just about sums up week one of America's war against Iraq. Before it started, the war was widely projected as a short and swift, not to mention surgical, affair. Eight days later, the evidence is mostly to the contrary. | | | |
| Price of Conflict | | 2003-03-28 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | losing it in the Republican-majority US Senate? If the Senate's refusal to grant George W Bush the full $726 billion in tax cuts is any indication, he might well be. In a dramatic snub to the president — who insists that tax cuts are necessary to stimulate an economic revival — the Senate voted 51 to 48 to limit the relief to just $350 billion. | | | |
| War against some applicants | | 2003-03-28 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | America’s war against terrorism, George ‘What-Me-Worry?’ Bush keeps reminding the world, is not directed against Muslims or Islam. (Right now, it doesn’t even seem to be directed against terrorists like Osama bin Laden, for that matter.) Fundamentalists who use Islam as a cover to kill innocent Americans, insists the Texan in Washington, are the enemy. | | | |
| Uncertain times | | 2003-03-27 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | A week into the war and days before the attack by the US-led coalition forces on Baghdad, only the outcome of the conflict is certain, not its duration, as President Bush has said | | | |
| Water Wars | | 2003-03-26 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | Oil has come to be synonymous with the ongoing Iraq war as both sides dig in for control of the world's second largest petroleum reserves. But another commodity perhaps more precious than oil will play a crucial role in the shape of things to come after the war in the region. That is water, long a source of contention between nations in the inhospitable terrain of West Asia. Iraq is particularly fortunate in this regard as two of Asia's biggest rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through it. Washington's biggest ally in the area, Israel, on the other hand, is perennially short of fresh water. | | | |
| Now, Baghdadograd? | | 2003-03-26 | Editorial | Indian Express | | Stalin may be Saddam’s hero but he may not survive as easily | | | |
| Shocking and Awful: US on the Road to Perdition | | 2003-03-26 | RAHUL SINGH | The Times Of India | | A week into the Iraq war and a feeling of deep unease is spreading over the Arab world. American and British troops, painfully making their way towards Baghdad, are being looked upon as invaders, rather than liberators. That is not how the script written by George Bush and Colin Powell had read. They had imagined that their "shock and awe" tactics of a massive bombardment of Iraq's capital would have "decapitated" the Iraqi leadership. | | | |
| Hanging out with the BJP | | 2003-03-24 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | The Gujarat election result had set pulses racing in the BJP. The broad message to its NDA allies was that the BJP was quite possibly turning the corner as far as public opinion went. This fed the calculation that it might just be safe to abide with that party, after all. | | | |
| Reality TV, Baghdad-style | | 2003-03-24 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | Watching a city being pounded by bombs on television is riveting enough. But to watch it real-time — with a little coloured box in the corner stating ‘live’ — makes the experience eerily surreal. | | | |
| Messy Missions | | 2003-03-24 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | With Iraq holding centrestage for obvious reasons, most people might have missed noticing the despatch of US-led troops to another part of the world — Afghanistan. Yes, the same Afghanistan over which the United States claimed to have won a comprehensive victory some 18 months ago. That war was meant to rid the world of Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaida terror network. Instead it ended in a regime change, a happier change to be sure, for the people of Afghanistan. | | | |
| Now Turkey on the plate | | 2003-03-24 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | Although the US and its allies have reasons to be satisfied with the progress of the war so far, the first signs of what complications may follow the conflict have emerged after the Turkish incursion into northern Iraq. It isn’t only France and Germany which broke ranks with the US (and Britain) in the run-up to the war, Turkey, too, hasn’t been willing to follow the American line. | | | |
| Power of One | | 2003-03-21 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | The United Nations may have been given the heave-ho by the only superpower, but solace has come to the world body in the unlikely form of Saddam Hussein. | | | |
| UN do the damage | | 2003-03-21 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | When America’s war in the Gulf is done, the UN Security Council will be expected to take stock of the role of the world body. | | | |
| Machinehead | | 2003-03-21 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | If George W. Bush wanted to kick the United Nations in the teeth and flagrantly offend the will of the international community while endangering its security, he couldn’t have done so more viciously than by launching a manifestly unjust war on Iraq. | | | |
| Power And Peril | | 2003-03-20 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | Growing unilateralism in the conduct of US foreign policy has never been as sharply in evidence as in the ultimatum issued by President George Bush to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to leave his country or face imminent military attack | | | |
| Beyond Iraq | | 2003-03-19 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | The die is cast. The US is going to war — against a foe who offers it no clear and present danger whatsoever — with no sanction or justification other than self-righteousness. | | | |
| Regime change in Britain ahead of Baghdad unlikely | | 2003-03-18 | EUROVISION / RASHMEE Z. AHMED | The Times Of India | | The lockstep alliance co-sponsoring the United Nations second resolution - America, Britain and Spain - plays to the gallery on Sunday with George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar scheduled to meet in the windswept Azores. | | | |
| Why I had to leave the cabinet? | | 2003-03-18 | Robin Cook | Hindustan Times | | I have resigned from the cabinet because I believe that a fundamental principle of Labour’s foreign policy has been violated | | | |
| POTA Rethink | | 2003-03-17 | Editorial | The Times Of India | | In Gujarat, another party notable, chief minister Narendra Modi, has unleashed the full fury of POTA on more than a hundred accused in the Godhra train tragedy, but refused to invoke it in the case of any of the thousands involved in the post-Godhra carnage | | | |
| Dead and buried | | 2003-03-17 | Rajindar Sachar | The Hindustan Times | | An extensive debate has ensued on the significance of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court directing the excavation of the area near the Babri masjid site. Some have raised the question about the competency and even impartiality of the Archaeological Survey of India to carry out the excavations. | | | |
| Husain's Sacrifice To Uphold Truth | | 2003-03-14 | YAZDAN AKHTAR | The Times Of India | | Today is the martyrdom day of Imam Husain, grandson of Prophet Mohammed. In 61 Hizrat (680 AD) a battle took place at Karbala, Iraq, on the banks of the river Euphrates. | | | |
| Imitation Hindutva | Many Political Shades of Saffron | | 2003-03-14 | SHASTRI RAMACHANDARAN | The Times Of India | | In Indian politics the obsession with the obvious is so pervasive that 'small' events are rarely perceived for their larger import. Inevitably the processes they signify are ignored until the trend overwhelms society. Elections are no exception as borne out by the indifference to the electoral pickings of, for example, the Bahujan Samaj Party or Tamil Nadu's Pattali Makkal Katchi during their early days. Only when they arrived, years later, as a political force on the 'national scene' did they merit analysis and study. | | | |
| Damned if you do | | 2003-03-14 | Prem Shankar Jha | The Hindustan Times | | Eight months ago, when George W. Bush and the hawks in his administration first floated a trial balloon about the need to force a regime change in Iraq, none of them had remotely imagined the strength of the opposition they would face. Today, the entire world is locked in an epic battle to prevent the US from attacking Iraq unilaterally, without a mandate from the UN Security Council. | | | |
| Minority report | | 2003-03-12 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | In fact, conducting surveys of homes and addresses of people on a communal basis is a dangerous idea as it is typically a prelude to focused violence against minority communities. The Jews were targeted thus in Nazi Germany and non-Muslim communities in Afghan-istan in the Taliban years and, more recently, in Bangladesh. Indeed, Gujarat itself went through a similar experience not long ago. Since the instigators of last year’s riots are virtually being assisted by the Modi government in getting away scot free through the dilution of FIRs, any suspicious activity in Gujarat is bound to attract wide attention | | | |
| India in a new world | | 2003-03-12 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | In contrast to the voluble popular and official reaction in European countries to the question of war in Iraq, the scene in India has been remarkably quiet. So quiet in fact that not even the possible implications of the conflict for India have been debated at any great length. Perhaps the preoccupation with cricket is responsible for this seeming lack of interest in a potentially catastrophic event. It may also be that there is some hope that the war will be somehow averted either because of the stiff opposition to it from France, Russia and others or because of further concessions from Saddam Hussein. The Vajpayee government’s decision, therefore, to stress the routine point of the international community acting only through the UN is understandable. | | | |
| Baghdad and Hiroshima | | 2003-03-12 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | In the annals of the infamy, the US’s attack on Iraq will rank with its dropping of the atom bomb on Japan. Gar Alperovitz documented in his work, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, the sordid considerations that inspired it; how “Truman lied — directly, repeatedly”. | | | |
| Family ties | | 2003-03-11 | Editorial | Indian Express | | The RSS inducts a younger leadership but its resolutions mark no break from the past | | | |
| Cries from the Heart | | 2003-03-10 | Editorial | Times Of India | | In the noise and importance of national leaders debating war, the voice of the so-called ordinary citizen is lost in the din. Even sometimes when such citizens gather in their thousands, and millions, as they have recently been doing, to protest against a conflagration increasingly seen as unnecessary as it seems inevitable. But sometimes individual dissent does stand out. | | | |
| Building Blues | | 2003-03-10 | Editorial | Times Of India | | Have you ever wondered why at the end of a day in office, you feel a lot more run-down than you should? The answer probably is that you are suffering from sick building syndrome (SBS) where a contaminated work environment causes all sorts of illnesses like headaches, nausea, fatigue, chills, respiratory problems, eye irritation and sore throats to name a few. | | | |
| Clipping US wings | | 2003-03-10 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | Even as Saddam Hussein waits for American bombs to rain down on Baghdad, he may feel bemused by the gulf that the impending war has opened up between the US and other European countries. | | | |
| Junking Moditva | | 2003-03-10 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | The Himachal results have shown that Narendra Modi was right. The BJP cannot win in the absence of riots. It was not for nothing, therefore, that Modi let the communal violence rage for weeks after the Godhra tragedy on February 27 last year. From the very next day, after Modi had reportedly advised the police not to be too conscious of their constitutional duty to check the disturbances, the riots continued for nearly two and a half months. Modi knew that with each passing day, his position grew stronger. Not only that, to ensure that he made full use of the Hindu anger and discontent, he sought early elections. | | | |
| Awaiting a verdict | | 2003-03-10 | Editorial | Indian Express | | Even as the courts have been seized of the matter, it has been picked up and foregrounded in the political space. The emotive dispute has been used to inflame passions, and in the run-up to elections, to unabashedly serve the political agenda. Over the years, it has become a political football, a shorthand for communal tensions, the flashpoint that has sparked a political idiom which draws on an incendiary mix of faith, resentment and grievance. Will those who arrogate to themselves the right to speak for a ‘Hindu’ constituency, those who have assiduously stoked and cultivated a popular fervour, now be fully persuaded by what the courts have to say? Or will they, if the verdict is unfavourable to them, trot out the argument that the matter is one of ‘faith’, after all? In a dispute as vexed as this, will both sides accept a characteristically tidy legal solution? Will it leave no leftover tensions, no untied threads? | | | |
| Digging up the past | | 2003-03-07 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | The country’s most famous real estate dispute has taken a new turn. Or has it? The Allahabad High Court has directed the Archaeological Survey of India to carry out excavations at the contentious site in Ayodhya. | | | |
| Controversial Dig | | 2003-03-07 | Editorial | Times Of India | | The decision of a three-judge special bench of the Allahabad high court to order the excavation of the disputed Ramjanambhoomi-Babri masjid site will come as a major surprise to most Ayodhya watchers. Given the long and tortuous legal and political history that already surrounds the dispute, the order is liable to inject a new and avoidable element of uncertainty into the case | | | |
| It’s Baghdad’s call | | 2003-03-06 | Robert D. Blackwill | Hindustan Times | | At the end of the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq agreed with the UN to destroy its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) completely and voluntarily. Since then, over 4,200 days have passed. During these 12 years, Iraq made no serious attempt to comply with this legal commitment to the UN. Indeed, Iraq’s actions for more than a decade have demonstrated contempt for the UN Security Council, which has passed 17 successive resolutions demanding that Iraq demolish its WMD — all to no avail. | | | |
| Of the people? By the people? | | 2003-03-05 | Vani Subramanian | Hindustan Times | | It’s a year since the mayhem in Gujarat. But we must let bygones be gone, we are told. We must give ‘normalcy’ a chance. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘normalcy’ as a state of “1. conforming to a standard, regular, usual, typical; 2. free from mental or emotional disorder”. | | | |
| Operation Desert Show | | 2003-03-05 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | For anyone following the annual Arab League summit held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt last weekend, the message sent out by the 22-member grouping seemed clear enough. The League rejected any attack on Iraq and endorsed “the need to resolve the Iraqi crisis by peaceful means”. | | | |
| General banter | | 2003-03-04 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | The capture in Pakistan of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 attack, has messed it up further for the Musharraf dictatorship. While it tries to earn brownie points from the US for helping out with the arrest of a top Al-Qaeda operative, the action has angered the country’s increasingly high-profile and expanded jehadi opposition. It has accused the government of letting loose the American secret services on Pakistanis and sinking the country’s honour. | | | |
| Invented Enemy: Savarkar's Politics of Revenge | | 2003-03-03 | JYOTIRMAYA SHARMA | The Times Of India | | Dhananjay Keer's biography of Savarkar talks of an incident when the 12-year-old Savarkar led a march of his schoolmates to stone the village mosque. Savarkar's own account of the incident speaks of him and his friends dancing with joy whenever they heard of Hindus killing Muslims in acts of retribution. Vandalising a mosque was their contribution to preserving Hindu dharma and establishing national honour. Savarkar's description of this incident is significant"We vandalised the mosque to our heart's content and raised the flag of our bravery on it. We followed the war strategy of Shivaji completely and ran away from the site after accomplishing our task," says Savarkar.The Muslim boys in the village retaliated. Savarkar's band of dharmavir warriors met the challenge with knives, pins and foot rulers. Savarkar recounts the victory of the Hindus in this dharma yuddha. In every sense, therefore, Savarkar is the father of the language of pratishodh and pratikaar, all synonyms for revenge, retribution and retaliation. The BJP, Shiv Sena, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Narendra Modi and Praveen Togadia are heirs and successors of Savarkar | | | |
| Team Secularism | | 2003-03-03 | SS Gill | Hindustan Times | | In a head-on confrontation with Hindutva, secularism has some inherent limitations. Secularism is a concept born of civilised, rational discourse. It is gentle, humane and accommodative in its approach. In this age of shrill and spicy fare, it is also somewhat bland. It lacks the emotional splendour and missionary zeal of a resurgent ideology. Thus, it lacks a springboard to whip up passions. | | | |
| Why George wants Saddam’s head | | 2003-02-27 | Editorial | Hindustan Times | | India’s leftists say it’s about oil. The VHP say it’s about the clash of civilisations. Everyone sees the US campaign against Saddam Hussein through their own prism. It’s true oil has a role. So does Islam. And WMD and terrorism. | | | |
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