tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-241308412012-02-09T12:05:04.867+05:30Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.comBlogger1201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-797031754399233102012-01-13T14:35:00.001+05:302012-01-13T14:37:05.429+05:30

Review ArticleNehru Centre, Witness to History, Transition and Transformation of India, 1947-1964, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2011, pp xiv + 162, Rs 445.A basic existential question would virtually leap out at the reader, a few pages into this volume. Does India’s first prime minister deserve another celebratory volume? Jawaharlal Nehru is acknowledged as an epochal figure in the struggle

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-25879556345146740612012-01-11T18:06:00.001+05:302012-01-11T18:11:47.234+05:30

Review ArticleHarsh V. Pant, The US-India Nuclear Pact: Policy, Process and Great Power Politics, Oxford University Press, Delhi, Delhi, 2011, pp xii + 150, Rs 450; ISBN 0-19-807396-8.Early in this book, Harsh V. Pant, a lecturer at King’s College, London, does a subtle but fairly effective job of puncturing some of the more fanciful conceptions of nuclear nationalism. “Nuclear weapons do retain

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-31748505940140277832012-01-06T14:09:00.003+05:302012-01-15T12:49:55.363+05:30

It is a word that has been tossed around in political contests and minutely dissected in scholarly circles. But “secularism” still remains an elusive concept. And in practice, “secular” politics is besieged at a number of levels, unable at any time to rise above particular, sectional interests.An event on December 7 organised by Sahmat was the occasion for a scholarly inquiry into the deeper

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-20863256147647730882011-12-18T19:40:00.001+05:302011-12-18T19:43:13.131+05:30

Dear Readers’ Editor,Maybe you do not have jurisdiction over material published in Frontline magazine. And if nobody before me has made this point to you, let me be the first: your columns as Readers’ Editor in The Hindu are seriously off-key.We expect a serious effort to address matters that the readership brings before you, but you seem intent on lecturing them on what is right and what is

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Review ArticleJason Burke, The 9/11 Wars, Allen Lane, London, 2011, pp xxii + 709, ISBN 978-1-84614-517-9.The attacks on mainland USA on September 11, 2001, have like no other single event, moulded world politics through this first decade of what is called a millennium. 9/11 is how that event has come to be known in contemporary accounts, and the imagery has been so powerful that every subsequent

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-5451030028155327332011-11-15T16:54:00.002+05:302011-11-15T19:30:07.833+05:30

After blustery threats failed to banish the item from the agenda, the U.S. and Israel retaliated in their own ways when the U.N. cultural body UNESCO, voted overwhelmingly to admit Palestine as a full member.The U.S. cut off all financial support and Israel announced plans to build a few thousand more dwelling units in occupied Palestinian land.As the public discourse plays out about a world body

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November 7, 2011Markandey Katju was appointed chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI) within days of retiring as a Judge of the Supreme Court. Purely by coincidence, there was some talk hanging in the air as he took office, of the need for new regulatory norms in the electronic media. Though not within his formal jurisdiction, he was quick to ask that the new guidelines be held in abeyance.

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The new spirit of assertion by a hitherto supine leadership and the degree of support from governments across the world, speak of a dawn of hope for the Palestinian people. The bid for a unilateral declaration of independence from Israeli occupation, which the Palestinians hope will be recognised by the United Nations, emerges from the wider ferment in the Arab world. But because it involves

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It is a family that has always taken pride in its unity, discretion and commitment to public causes -- a family that has for four generations from its home base in Chennai (formerly Madras) published The Hindu, one of India’s most widely-recognised and respected newspapers. The Hindu has itself been in print since 1878 – longer than all other Indian newspapers, except The Times of India of Mumbai

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Facts have a certain pliability about them. They can always be moulded in a shape that suits prior conceptions. At a discussion in Delhi on the Media and the Politics of Corruption on August 31 – just a few days after a hunger fast by Kisan Baburao Hazare, alias Anna, in the cause of a high-powered anti-corruption body had been called off -- two television news anchors, aware that their conduct

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-27348333807012016972011-09-06T18:03:00.004+05:302011-09-07T11:43:25.651+05:30

The death penalty has forced its way into the political agenda after a number of mercy petitions were turned down by the President. Among the many now facing the imminence of death by hanging are those convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination of 1991, a 1993 bomb attack on a Youth Congress leader which killed numerous innocent bystanders, and the armed assault on Parliament in 2001.As with all

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-22418177808021398392011-08-25T19:31:00.012+05:302011-12-14T19:47:47.066+05:30

Corruption is the central concern. It is almost a theological concept. It is also a term – along with the linked adjective, “corrupt” – that recurs at frequent intervals through the text of the Jan Lok Pal (JLP) bill. This bill has gone through thirteen iterations and in its current form is, according to the social campaigner Anna Hazare and his core group of associates (Team Anna) ready for

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-86835615802716487692011-08-21T13:47:00.006+05:302011-08-27T13:26:47.078+05:30

(Written August 11 for the September issue of Seminar magazine) IN a commentary published on the editorial page of a leading daily newspaper (The Hindu, 30 June 2011), Anil Divan, a senior advocate who has done much to institute a credible regime of accountability in governance processes, argued the case for including the prime minister under the jurisdiction of a tough new law to curb

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-36258569311375470102011-08-19T11:14:00.004+05:302011-08-19T19:27:04.207+05:30

On February 23 this year, India’s principal trade union confederations jointly organised a mass rally in the national capital. Inflation had seriously been eroding security of livelihoods. And despite acute concerns among the working class, official thinking showed little inclination to go beyond the standard story line that the labour market needed to be “reformed” – that enterprises in other

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IntroductionThe mass uprising of mid-2010 in Kashmir sent shock waves across all of India. It caught most experts on Kashmir thoroughly unawares, after they had managed to persuade themselves that the situation in the valley – routinely referred to as “troubled” – had rapidly changed for the better.The warning signals emanating from the valley through the two years before, were evidently not

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-77390685675174559382011-07-18T20:57:00.004+05:302011-07-19T13:03:18.509+05:30

Among the grounds on which exceptions could be made to the free speech right in India, are the security of the state, the territorial integrity of the nation, public order and decency, contempt of court and rather implausibly, friendly relations with a foreign state. As originally adopted, the Indian Constitution guaranteed free speech as an unfettered right. But the various grounds on which “

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-69967827680438104822011-06-09T13:28:00.003+05:302011-06-11T12:25:37.354+05:30

Delhi High Court grants a reprieve for artistic freedom(Written after the Delhi High Court ruling of May 2008, quashing criminal proceedings launched against M.F. Husain in various courts of the country)Few realms of artistic or scholarly excellence were spared the fallout of India’s bitter communal polarisation of the 1990s and beyond. Circumstances were especially hazardous for artists and

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-85549504465167482372011-06-07T14:11:00.002+05:302011-06-07T14:42:46.067+05:30

Henry Kissinger, On China, Allen Lane, London, 2011, pp xviii + 586, ISBN 978-1-846-14346-5.Any work on China today would be a marketable proposition and the author here, with his long record of active engagement with the subject, is most unlikely to suffer critical neglect. Despite the capacious title, suggestive of a compendium of diverse writings drawn from various times, this book is

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-47548700538334499932011-06-05T08:39:00.001+05:302011-06-05T08:42:19.958+05:30

There were no standing ovations when U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the annual conclave of the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) in Washington DC. The atmosphere was formal and parts of his speech were met with what was described as “stony silence”. Shortly afterwards, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu rounded off a visit to the U.S. that was, behind the

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-56501050160265254172011-05-14T09:55:00.000+05:302011-05-14T09:56:47.764+05:30

Over seven days of polling between April 4 and May 10, five Indian states, together accounting for over a fifth of the membership of the two houses of parliament, had general elections to their legislative assemblies. The long drawn out process of balloting left everyone – candidate, voter and interested bystander – restless for final closure. And when the counting of votes started early on May

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-73842168256613520702011-05-08T19:01:00.000+05:302011-05-08T19:02:42.504+05:30

At a mid-April public discussion on the proposal for a tough new statute to deal with corruption, J.S. Verma, former Chief Justice of India, raised a red flag. Certain of the ambitions of the draft bill to create a Lokpal, or ombudsman, with wide-ranging powers of scrutiny and sanction, were simply out of order. Indeed, the draft bill in circulation, he feared, would likely impinge on features

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-27969400422172708952011-05-08T18:59:00.001+05:302011-05-08T19:00:37.994+05:30

It is my honour to place before you the ninth press freedom report for South Asia, prepared by the International Federation of Journalists on behalf of partners and affiliates in the region, known collectively as the South Asia Media Solidarity Network (SAMSN). As with the last five years, this year’s report has been supported by UNESCO and we place on record our appreciation for this. Unlike in

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-49572198285790023272011-05-08T18:56:00.000+05:302011-05-08T18:58:26.177+05:30

Anna Hazare’s hunger fast for probity in politics captured the news agenda and unleashed a nationwide fervour. Declarations of victory may be premature since the real work of drafting a law is only just beginning. Corruption is not an abstract evil that can be combated by the virtuous few. It is about imbalances of power and the subversion of democratic goals by elite manipulation. Dealing with

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-23783138148940236872011-02-25T07:12:00.003+05:302011-02-28T19:33:06.029+05:30

Why the Media Believes that Transparency is only for OthersA study conducted at the five-year mark in the implementation of the Right to Information (RTI), found that the media had not been particularly keen in using the various possibilities inherent in the law. This should seem at first glance, rather curious, since the media derives its existence and social value, from its role as an

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-87478374687294554082011-02-22T11:02:00.001+05:302011-02-22T11:04:21.988+05:30

The U.S. has committed several outright crimes in the course of its fancifully named “global war on terror”. These have invariably been embroidered and portrayed as accidental missteps that the morally righteous occasionally make. A vital safety valve has been the assurance that the government of Pakistan, its one indispensable and most conflicted ally in the enterprise, would willingly step up

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-8394403619727196902011-02-15T20:34:00.003+05:302011-02-15T20:41:17.014+05:30

Time for a new compact of respect with the valleySecurity anxieties were less intense, but Republic Day 2011 still proved a contentious occasion. The country’s main opposition party showed little inclination to participate in official observances, since its principal leaders were focused on Jammu and Kashmir and on reprising a nearly 20-year old formula – since fallen into disuse -- on the

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-76715671630865959122011-01-25T16:00:00.002+05:302011-01-25T21:05:35.134+05:30

Tufail Ahmad Mattoo died on June 11, just eighteen days short of his eighteenth birthday. The cause of death was identified, after much avoidable early confusion, as a grievous head injury. In Srinagar’s fevered public mood, his death soon came to be understood as a deliberate act of vendetta – of a roguish police officer seeking to stamp his authority on public demonstrators, without making too

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-38459991661476864832011-01-24T19:05:00.004+05:302012-01-25T14:40:25.771+05:30

A book of epochal importanceMadhushree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War, The British Empire and the Ravaging of India During World War II, Tranquebar, Chennai, 2010, pp xxxvi + 352, Rs 495Since completing a doctorate at the University of Chicago in1989 under the supervision of Yoichiro Nambu, the 2009 Nobel laureate in physics, Madhusree Mukerjee has worked principally as a science journalist.

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-2610099021777965042010-12-23T21:48:00.000+05:302010-12-23T22:11:41.208+05:30

Marie-Monique Robin, The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Politics and Power, Tulika Books, Delhi, 2010, pp xii + 372, Rs 675.Corporate history affords several case studies of companies changing and reinventing themselves over time, acquiring a contemporary shape and form simply not foretold in their original genetic code.Mutations in product profile are a part of corporate evolution. But

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-56518650020707123922010-09-13T19:56:00.001+05:302010-09-13T19:57:22.243+05:30

Acts of idiocy by the powerful come rather frequently, but few in recent times have matched the vulgarity of the flight-suited swagger down the deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, by a smirking George W. Bush on May 1, 2003. Few indeed can remotely approach the foolhardiness of the banner that provided the backdrop to his announcement that day, of a “mission accomplished” in

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-78547759592310221422010-09-11T18:26:00.002+05:302010-09-11T19:04:11.487+05:30

INDIA AND THE WORLD: UNDERSTANDING NEW MODES OF ENGAGEMENT1. Where pretence ends and reality begins2. Poverty and global voice3. Fiscal difficulties and public welfare commitments4. RTI and the new regime of transparency5. Dealing with inflation6. First steps for meaningful and credible global engagement7. Achieving coherence between multiple forums8. Second wind for the Indian growth process9.

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-39822506525569544102010-08-24T17:13:00.001+05:302010-08-24T17:15:48.556+05:30

Bhopal has etched itself in public memory as a term that sums up several themes: criminal negligence, the collapse of supposedly fail-safe technological systems and thousands left dead. To that could be added more unsavoury dimensions: a failure of accountability, the denial of a fair opportunity for the victims and survivors to put their lives back on track and indeed, a collapse of the system

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-69644686657303964082010-08-23T18:03:00.001+05:302010-08-23T18:05:00.668+05:30

India and Pakistan observed their recent anniversaries of independence from colonialism in distinctly sombre mood. Despite the hard times, if there was room for make-believe in India, the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe that had Pakistan in a vice-like grip, left that country no such luxury.Life for the estimated tenth or more of Pakistan’s population that has been dislocated by floods in

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-46625033010771712122010-06-26T10:35:00.003+05:302010-06-26T10:37:51.869+05:30

From November 2004, paper published as part of a commemorative conference in Bhopal on the two-decade anniversary of the tragedy.BHOPAL, TWENTY YEARS ONDid the media get it right?1 Introduction: media fundamentalsLooking back two decades from the vantage point afforded by the state of the Indian media today, is partly about recognising a scenario of momentous changes. At the time of the Bhopal

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Economic and Political Weekly, December 4, 2004 (EDITORIAL)Twenty years after the Bhopal gas disaster, accountability remains the principal casualty of a seriously misconceived litigation. And the mechanisms of succour for the victims, despite the windfall of a recent Supreme Court order, are rapidly winding down, never having performed with anything like the required efficiency and sensitivity.

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-62763120287934309722010-06-21T19:44:00.003+05:302010-06-21T20:15:34.162+05:30

EPW Commentary December 4, 2004Bhopal: Continuing Institutional CrisisTwenty years on, the verdict on how the Indian state has responded to Bhopal should be unequivocal: not only did it neglect its responsibilities, it actively suppressed the rights of the victims. The state of public knowledge about the disaster and the best recourse available to the victims was summed up recently by a doctor

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-78539252938203079912010-06-19T13:44:00.001+05:302010-06-19T13:47:37.535+05:30

Samir Kumar Das and Rada Ivekovic, Terror, Terrorism, States and Societies: A Historical and Philosophical Perspective, Kali for Women, Delhi, 2010, pp xxviii + 300, ISBN 818896556-1, Rs 495.Terror and terrorism have been constant themes in global politics since at least 2001. And yet they continue to stir up conflicting emotions and responses. In their application in the dominant global

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Awkward questions about rights remain subdued in good times. Opportunities seemingly, are manifold and few seem to think a struggle for lost freedoms necessary. It is an economic downturn that poses the stiffest test to all the rules of fair play that a liberal society is sworn to abide by. The New York Times (NYT) in an editorial published December 28, 2008, weighed in on what should be done and

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-19180167145477963642010-02-11T10:57:00.001+05:302010-02-11T11:02:11.834+05:30

Newclick Production, 10 Feb 2010D Raghunandan and moi in friendly conversation about the freeze in India Pakistan relations after the Mumbai attacks, and the possible content of the upcoming talks.

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-24955879323709914102009-11-13T17:16:00.000+05:302009-11-13T17:18:11.797+05:30

Afghanistan today is a site where several momentous decisions are being played out involving numerous actors, each seemingly less able than the other of dealing with these historic burdens of choice.Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, had the choice between putting his seven-year record in power to an authentic popular test, and remaining in power as figurehead for a confederacy of warlords

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-52650390880028658742009-10-15T19:27:00.004+05:302009-10-15T19:38:10.818+05:30

A review article from July 2003, soon after the U.S. had declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq and cursorily acknowledged "the road map" to peace in Palestine.How Road Maps Can KillTanya Reinhart, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, 2003, (Various Publishers).Ahron Bregman, Israel's Wars, A History Since 1948, 2002, (Various Publishers).MAPS are charted to aid in navigating territory.

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-54880994150164827622009-10-12T18:12:00.002+05:302009-10-12T18:39:12.618+05:30

Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: The Taliban, the ISI and the New Opium Wars, Hachette India, Delhi, 2009, pp xvii + 302, Rs 495, ISBN 978-93-80143-02-6.Imtiaz Gul, The Al Qaeda Connection: The Taliban and Terror in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas, Penguin India, Delhi, 2009, pp ix + 308, Rs 499, ISBN 978-0-670-08292-6. Eight years ago, a poor and impoverished nation, devastated by decades of strife,

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-45157141090537721852009-10-11T17:51:00.001+05:302009-10-11T17:52:30.488+05:30

A mid-year economic recovery has seen some of the gloom abate and the festive season may have imparted an added buoyancy. But the mood in the Indian media industry as it heads into the new year, remains sombre.The industry faces serious questions today about the sustainability of the current upturn. Does it really have the momentum to overcome multiple adversities -- a global economy mired in

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-7418897282187271002009-10-10T13:17:00.001+05:302009-10-10T13:21:18.199+05:30

On November 17, 2008, Konsam Rishikanta, 22, a junior sub-editor with the Imphal Free Press (IFP), a daily newspaper published from Imphal, capital of the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur, was found shot dead in the city.Rishikanta had left home early that morning after informing his family that he would be reporting for work around midday. His first call that day was supposedly at a small

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-66193112544141147132009-10-10T13:13:00.001+05:302009-10-10T13:16:34.201+05:30

Just around daybreak on May 30, 2009, two women, Niloufer Ahangar and her sister-in-law Asiya Jan, were found dead at different spots in a stream near the district town of Shopian, 52 kilometres from Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Tension gripped the area and the local administration promptly deployed security forces in strength in an effort to deter

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-19684708928833467702009-09-22T18:58:00.006+05:302009-09-24T12:21:44.612+05:30

Early September 2009, the Metropolitan Magistrate in the city of Ahmedabad, released his report on the killing of four suspected terrorists by the Gujarat police in June 2004. His finding was simply that the killing had been staged: that far from being an armed engagement in which the police personnel returned fire in legitimate self-defence, the four – who included a woman from Mumbai, Ishrat

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-67385904527980240572009-09-19T12:07:00.001+05:302009-09-19T12:09:36.736+05:30

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has reason to take much for granted. It cannot be easy redeeming a country that has been identified as the antithesis of all that western civilisation stands for. And anybody who bears that onerous mantle, can claim a certain latitude. He may occasionally stray and cause his patrons some concern. But his long-term promise is that he is the only bulwark

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-18696338873604925002009-08-19T18:46:00.002+05:302009-08-19T18:52:37.189+05:30

Review Article (From January 2005)Strobe Talbott, Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb, Penguin, Viking, pp 268, Rs395.A “transformation” is the term of art applied to the outcome of diplomatic processes between India and the U.S. over the last few years. That indeed was the theme of a brochure issued by the U.S. embassy in India late in the summer of 2004. U.S. Secretary of State

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-32963406099760895182009-08-15T20:34:00.000+05:302009-08-15T20:35:50.439+05:30

Despite all the energy that has been spent in its dissection, “identity” remains an elusive entity – both as concept and practice. Historians argue unendingly over when the notion became an ingredient in political mobilisation, and political scientists wonder about its unique power to move masses to great acts of destruction.The power of “identity” has waxed and waned over much of modern history

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-18489822110843534482009-08-15T20:33:00.000+05:302009-08-15T20:34:02.934+05:30

Perhaps it is the environment of the Non-Aligned Summit that induces mood swings of great amplitude in India’s top political leadership. Perhaps there are other forces at work, quietly and unobtrusively, compelling shifts of strategy and direction in the engagement between India and her troubled western neighbour.When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari in

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-86325511669576993642009-08-15T20:20:00.001+05:302009-08-15T20:23:52.833+05:30

In perhaps one respect, U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent speech at Cairo lived up to its advance billing as a historic overture to the Islamic world. Hidden within its characteristic eloquence, were frequent admissions of error by the U.S., hitherto the unquestionable bearer of the mantle of righteousness. Obama fortunately is grounded in reality, rather than theological faith. That crucial

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-54125906597174721332009-02-19T14:19:00.002+05:302009-02-19T14:32:57.864+05:30

Khadija Haq and Richard Ponzio (editors), Pioneering the Human Development Revolution, An Intellectual Biography of Mahbub ul Haq, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2008, pp xvi + 266, Rs 595, ISBN 019569513-5.V.V. Bhatt, Perspectives on Development, Memoirs of a Development Economist, Academic Foundation, New Delhi, pp 135, Rs 595, ISBN 13: 978-81-7188-683-8.These are disparate books, united by

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-68207370545605774642009-01-10T12:37:00.003+05:302009-01-10T12:41:22.112+05:30

Impunity continues to be the norm where attacks on journalists in Sri Lanka are concerned. Since the murder of Dharmaratnam Sivaram “Taraki” in April 2005, there have been at least 14 other cases of journalists and media workers reported murdered. The International Mission was unable to identify any one case among these that had been brought to the stage of prosecution. The authorities are also

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-46088864523628429042009-01-07T14:06:00.001+05:302009-01-07T14:08:06.247+05:30

Sir,The article you front-paged as top story in your Delhi edition on January 7 is deeply objectionable on several counts ("Expanding Talibanistan is closer to Wagah than Lucknow to Delhi", ToI, Jan 7 2009, page 1; available at this writing at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/The_advance_of_Taliban/articleshow/3943942.cms.)To begin with, the headline is seriously challenged in a

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-7881053293570839182008-12-26T19:47:00.003+05:302008-12-31T19:31:49.164+05:30

AMPLIFYING CHAOS, SOWING DISCORDTerrorism has been a frequent visitor to Indian shores over the last two decades and more. Earlier visitations have been instantaneous blows that have stunned and staggered, though they have allowed for a quick recovery of morale as civic processes kick in and people who cannot afford the luxury of disengagement from daily routines, resume their normal

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-59529246865957322902008-12-25T19:48:00.002+05:302010-09-09T19:06:24.998+05:30

When India’s Parliament resumed its sitting in December, the two principal political formations had just fought each other to a stalemate in five state assembly elections. The BJP’s effort to milk the Mumbai tragedies for electoral advantage had conspicuously failed. The defeat in Delhi, where concerns over urban terrorism and chaos should have been acute, was especially galling. But the

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-73687010031974686842008-12-25T19:43:00.002+05:302008-12-25T19:45:59.835+05:30

Thomas Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Why the world needs a green revolution – and how we can renew our global future, Allen Lane, London, 2008, pp 438, 20 pounds (Rs 595); ISBN 978-1-846-14129-4.Much contemporary wisdom, it seems, originates on dining table napkins. Fiscal policy was influenced rather inordinately and for much too long, by the mythical conception called the “Laffer curve”.

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-77011285897743486792008-12-05T21:04:00.000+05:302008-12-05T21:12:49.492+05:30

There are occasions in history when collective trauma brings a nation intimately in contact with its deepest anxieties. Mumbai 26/11, to use the media shorthand for the horror that began one night in November and carried on for close to three days, was one such. The terrorist attacks that began November 26 and transformed swiftly into a 60-hour long siege of three landmark buildings in India’s

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-17027271545932214322008-12-05T18:47:00.000+05:302008-12-05T18:51:57.573+05:30

Scenes of horrific violence, conducted with cruel and deliberate premeditation, elicit anger and indignation. Mumbai’s 48-hour ordeal of terror, covered in real-time by the country’s numerous news channels, unleashed spasms of rage across the country. The fury is only likely to intensify when security operations are concluded and a true measure obtained of the horror that was unleashed on Mumbai

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-51051393913120967132008-11-22T12:56:00.000+05:302008-11-22T13:04:54.218+05:30

Terror strikes, randomly killing people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, unhinge reason. They breed an intolerance of difference and create conditions under which ordinary people are willing to abandon the commonsense of daily coexistence. In the immediate aftermath of a terrorist outrage, innocents who have suffered, demand recompense. And those fortunate enough to

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-70206963535731665122008-10-15T14:50:00.001+05:302008-10-15T14:57:08.047+05:30

Conjoined by history, Pakistan and Afghanistan need new ideas to work themselves out of the geopolitical trap they have been lured into by the U.S.As a term in the international political science discourse, “failed state” is of relatively recent origin. It would take a great deal of effort to understand when the term entered the vocabulary, gaining currency first in a tiny trickle, before

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-67996283558489235282008-10-01T17:53:00.001+05:302008-10-07T15:57:11.784+05:30

If “war” is the appropriate description for the struggle against terror that the country is now engaged in, then it is a war that differs very significantly from the conventional understanding.Four attacks in major cities in as many months – the latest being the Delhi serial blasts of September 13 -- may represent an escalation, but the war really began from well before. The precise date is a

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-82160843625323221712008-09-30T16:07:00.003+05:302008-10-07T15:59:13.950+05:30

“Made for media” investigations are creating a public hysteria and betraying the cause of justiceInvestigations into the recent terrorist attacks in India, with all the media spectacle they afford, have done little else than fuel public hysteria. The process of the law has been wilfully shredded while a case is made for broader powers of detention and investigation for the police. As

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-27947841470235543882008-08-21T14:37:00.001+05:302008-08-21T14:39:13.713+05:30

Afghanistan was just a way station in the broader civilisational mission of ridding the world of terrorism, a brief halt for the armies of virtue before they went on to nobler tasks. When the larger project got mired in a strategic mess of exclusive U.S. authorship in Iraq, Afghanistan still remained the saving grace, with all the signs it was showing of change for the better.The puncturing of

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-930377639177987692008-08-20T17:40:00.002+05:302008-08-20T17:44:53.395+05:30

The Indian Supreme Court on August 18 declared that it intends to lay down norms for media coverage of ongoing criminal investigations.According to media reports, India’s highest court, hearing a public interest petition filed by an independent lawyer, determined that media coverage of the investigations into the murder of a teenage girl, Aarushi Talwar, in the township of Noida neighbouring

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-86948396842621967292008-08-19T18:42:00.000+05:302008-08-19T18:46:35.859+05:30

Review articleHarish Damodaran, India’s New Capitalists: Caste, Business and Industry in a Modern Nation, Permanent Black in association with the New India Foundation, 2008, Delhi, pp xxiii + 341, Rs 695.To call this work a fascinating collage of business biographies would best describe the experience of reading it, though perhaps at the risk of undermining the rigour with which its material has

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-56032338719432408862008-07-18T18:13:00.000+05:302008-07-18T19:31:47.163+05:30

Review ArticleJoseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War, The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, Allen Lane (Penguin Books), London, 2008, pp 311, Rs 595; ISBN 978-1-846-14128-7It was election year in the U.S. and the country was trapped in what seemed an endless war. Confronted with a colossal loss of public confidence in his leadership and widespread revulsion at the tableau

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-57791397510183227092008-06-04T19:44:00.000+05:302008-06-04T19:48:50.747+05:30

Few realms of artistic or scholarly excellence were spared the fallout of India’s bitter communal polarisation of the 1990s and beyond. Circumstances were especially hazardous for artists and scholars who drew their inspiration from the rich syncretism of Indian folk traditions. And as events have proven, few were more vulnerable than Maqbool Fida Husain, whose work has been an ongoing and

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-681185373642120912008-03-13T12:46:00.000+05:302008-03-13T13:08:06.048+05:30

Well the man does try to affect a sense of humour. Some years back, after all his WMD claims had been conclusively proven a hoax, he pulled off that act at the annual Gridiron dinner, rummaging around under the dining tables in mock pursuit of the elusive weapons. That was at a time when U.S. servicemen who had been sent into that war of destruction against a sovereign country, were dying in the

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-63155241795280221072008-03-07T16:27:00.000+05:302008-03-07T16:39:15.044+05:30

The context for the discussion on ethics in Indian journalismAll sectors of the media in India have grown rapidly in recent years.Significant changes have occurred in editorial policy and commercial strategies, as traditional sectors (print and radio), have responded to competition from new media like satellite TV and the internet.Concerns have been raised about the quantitative expansion being

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-4103600543290249692008-03-07T16:10:00.001+05:302008-06-08T11:13:30.938+05:30

Before I come to the specific questions on these themes, which were put to me by a student doing a college dissertation, let me try to sketch out the broader context. Nuclear energy is at the current time, a contributor to the extent of less than 5 percent to India’s total electricity needs. Nuclear weapons are likely to remain forever, an inert part of the Indian arsenal, since no government is

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-3731564670015782602008-03-01T09:42:00.000+05:302008-03-01T09:45:41.746+05:30

But can agriculture contribute a new growth momentum to the economy?Early commentary on the budget 2008-09 has focused almost entirely on a single parameter: the aggregate level of economic growth. Missing in all the punditry has been a serious effort to engage with the sources of growth in the Indian economy.Evidently, the recent growth dynamic has had little to do with agriculture. As the

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-64221516488517158652008-01-31T17:06:00.000+05:302008-01-31T17:09:02.116+05:30

When militant elements from Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement, began tearing apart a wall that kept the 1.5 million people of Gaza confined in a narrow space – prey to periodic armed incursions and air-strikes from Israel, unable to cross into Egypt’s Sinai region -- President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had a choice to make.Mubarak was proscribed by the terms of a peace treaty with Israel,

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-61692666437688117462008-01-22T20:49:00.001+05:302008-01-22T20:49:33.521+05:30

A head of state who engages in a sequence of self-serving and contradictory public remarks about a matter as sensitive as the murder of his country’s former prime minister, would seem to put his chances of political survival at serious risk. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan though, derives his authority from sources that put him beyond such mundane notions of public accountability.Four weeks after

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-77823732474417835102008-01-22T20:45:00.000+05:302008-01-31T17:15:59.248+05:30

A Review ArticleSumantra Bose, Contested Lands, HarperCollins Publishers India, Delhi, 2007, price not stated, pp vi + 329, ISBN 978-81-7223-608-3.Successive waves of decolonisation since World War II created a global mosaic of nation states, putting in place a power configuration that seemed immutable. For the authors of the nationalist revival in the Third World, their mission was nothing less

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-28822739900700946392008-01-22T18:55:00.000+05:302008-01-22T19:27:29.425+05:30

A Review ArticleIraq, Preventing a New Generation of Conflict, Markus E. Bouillon, David M. Malone and Ben Rowswell (editors), a project of the International Peace Academy, Viva Books, New Delhi, 2007, pp xiv + 351, price not stated.There could be no quarrel with the stated theoretical endeavour of this book. Iraq is a country that has gone through a quarter-century of war: first against a

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-91795865186238403862007-12-26T18:19:00.000+05:302007-12-26T18:29:09.087+05:30

The U.S. and Israel confront new realitiesThere could be differing opinions on when the war of manoeuvre between the U.S. and Iran began. The most recent phase of conflict could however, be dated from a few weeks after U.S. President George Bush landed in the full uniformed regalia of a fighter-pilot on an aircraft carrier anchored off the California coast, to declare “Mission Accomplished” in

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-39122973748583158962007-09-25T17:36:00.000+05:302007-09-25T17:40:17.447+05:30

Amrita Basu and Srirupa Roy (editors), Violence and Democracy in India, Seagull Books, Calcutta, 2007, pp 266, price not stated; ISBN 1 9054 2 231 8As a principle, democracy is hard to argue with, not least because of the claim that it affords conflict resolution methods that prevent the all too ready recourse to violence. However, there is no arguing as well, with the reading that democracies

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-2227777959042904742007-09-20T18:28:00.000+05:302007-09-28T06:06:07.428+05:30

The political frenzy that ensued from a recent affidavit filed by the Archeological Survey of India in the Supreme Court, threatened briefly like it could take the country down a road recently travelled, with deeply traumatic results. All the ingredients that made the Ayodhya controversy such a lethal cocktail were present: the aggressive protestations that faith necessarily trumped reason, the

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-16417106994189444502007-09-20T18:11:00.000+05:302007-09-20T18:13:10.680+05:30

With serious issues due to enter a decisive phase of public debate, the political atmosphere in Washington DC was expectant as the summer of 2007 gave way to the first hints of fall. Both the top U.S. military commander and the ambassador in Iraq were scheduled to depose before Congress on the state of the war that President George Bush had launched in defiance of world opinion, over four years

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-36443036174879873862007-09-20T18:10:00.000+05:302007-09-20T18:11:29.118+05:30

The fleeting public reappearance of the Broadcast Services Regulation Bill (BSRB) and its subsequent relegation to a legislative limbo, is consistent with the Central Government’s record of continually failing the test of creatively managing the airwaves as a public resource.In comparison to its immediate predecessor -- the 2006 bill with an identical name -- the 2007 visitation of the BSRB shows

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-8322272060511490092007-09-20T18:07:00.001+05:302007-09-20T18:09:33.913+05:30

Broadcast regulation, for all its importance from a public interest standpoint, today seems reduced to an elaborate game of feint and manoeuvre between the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the country’s bigger media houses. Played out every so often in public view, there is yet no accounting for the specific intervals at which the two principals choose to enact their practised routine

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-38850554783913070772007-08-17T18:21:00.000+05:302007-08-17T18:24:52.815+05:30

Never very attentive to the subtleties of professional intelligence gathering, the war cabal in Washington DC has premised much of its global enterprise on embellishing and embroidering findings to support predetermined courses of action. There was little they could do though, with the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released mid-July, except to evade the substance of the argument and

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-79509335634847474762007-07-11T12:43:00.000+05:302007-07-11T13:01:26.111+05:30

Unprecedented pressures have built up in recent weeks on the beleaguered Palestinian people, fuelling a heightened sense of despair. Participants in the Palestinian struggle for a national home and identity are convinced that never in the nearly six decades since the “catastrophe” of 1948, have things seemed as dark and gloomy. This applies as much to the communities that have been scattered

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-66282015460147925892007-04-27T21:05:00.000+05:302007-04-27T21:06:55.227+05:30

The Supreme Court on March 29, imposed an interim stay on the application of the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions) Act of 2006, throwing well-advanced admission procedures in these institutions into considerable disarray. In introducing legislation for reservation of seats for “socially and educationally backward classes”, the court held that the Government had been

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-2196862222731165422007-04-27T21:02:00.000+05:302007-04-27T21:04:06.664+05:30

The scandal surrounding Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, and a female companion who he secured a cosy billet in the U.S. State Department for, is one among many sordid dramas being played out in Washington DC. The unifying theme of it all could be called the implosion of the Bush administration.It is an index of the precipitous fall in public esteem of the U.S. president and all those

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-18528906398571795562007-04-27T21:01:00.000+05:302007-04-27T21:02:39.540+05:30

The media function in society was for long studied almost exclusively in terms of a “transmission” model, which emphasised the autonomy of the institution and the anonymity of its audience. Its central focus was the influence exerted by the media on social perceptions, through a process of “indoctrination”.The passage of years has brought in a more sensitive approach, which concerns itself not

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-51243168828957352242007-04-23T18:42:00.000+05:302007-04-23T18:44:12.778+05:30

Among the ceremonial events that marked the opening of the 14th SAARC Summit in Delhi early April, was the flagging-off of a car rally. Beginning two weeks earlier in Bangladesh, the rally had briefly halted in Delhi en route to covering all the member countries (then seven) of the regional grouping, in the space of a month. It was a rather literal-minded effort to underline the Summit’s

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-41289258502728325702007-02-26T18:42:00.000+05:302007-02-26T18:45:02.710+05:30

Puzzlement has been the most prominent among the public reactions to the mega-deals that have seen Indian companies aggressively pursue global players and buy them up. Money that once seemed beyond the ambitions of the country – money that could cover India’s entire defence budget and substantially bridge the fiscal deficit, that most intractable problem of the economy, -- suddenly seemed within

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-1171010342592118602007-02-09T14:06:00.000+05:302007-02-09T14:09:02.913+05:30

January 21, 2007It could well be the epitaph for the ruinous presidency of George Bush the second, that he disdained reality. The attitude was rather neatly expressed as far back as 2002, by a senior official within the administration, who had occasion to upbraid a journalist who had stepped beyond the strict norms of criticism laid down by the White House. The trouble he said, is that there were

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With Saddam out of the way, the U.S. will have nobody left to blame for the looming catastrophe in West AsiaSukumar MuralidharanThere is a personality trait that George Bush, president of the U.S.A., has never been able to shake off. As governor of the state of Texas, he won great eminence as the most prolific executioner in the U.S., sparing nobody who had been convicted under the state’s

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Satellite broadcasting is a visible presence in everyday life and one of the faster growing sectors of the last decade or more. But in India it has largely functioned within a legislative and regulatory vacuum. This is a reality that lends itself to different interpretations. Champions of the free market would see the electronic media in India as testimony to the entrepreneurial dynamism that has

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The symbolism of Dalit politics is a tactical response to the threat of violence lurking beneath the surface of Indian democracy (but the benevolent tolerance that caste Hindu society affects, may well be misplaced)In January 2006, Bant Singh, a Dalit peasant and community organiser, was assaulted near his home village in Mansa District of Punjab state. Left for dead by his assailants, he was

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-1163489303036292482006-11-14T12:56:00.000+05:302007-02-04T20:50:03.640+05:30

Rounding off his account of Nations and Nationalism, the historian E.J. Hobsbawm, in a work widely recognised – even 15 years after it was published – as one of the most authoritative in recent times, firmly stated his belief that the phenomenon of nationalism may have exhausted its energy as a historical force. “The owl of Minerva” which brings wisdom, he says, “flies out at dusk”, invoking

Sukumar Muralidharanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13478615432317676910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24130841.post-1160715313901322672006-10-13T10:24:00.000+05:302007-02-04T20:52:33.383+05:30

North Korea’s nuclear ambitions have been a long-running saga, but there is much room for speculation over why it should have chosen to foreground them at this stage, ensuring that they become the most immediate strategic priority for the U.S. and its global allies. It is certainly a material circumstance that the Kim Jong Il regime announced its intention to test a nuclear weapon just over a

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For two countries that have disagreed so bitterly on basic definitions in the past, a joint "institutional mechanism" to combat terrorism must seem the height of wishful thinking, of vaulting political ambition seeking in vain to reach beyond limits imposed by mechanisms of governance and enforcement. But such has been the promise of the Havana joint statement between India and Pakistan, issued

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September 13, 2006Well into the recent political rumpus over Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram, it was established that the whole controversy had been ignited by a serious misreading. September 7 as a date has no historic significance in the life of Bankim’s best-known poem. Though there is little dispute over the fact that Vande Mataram as a political slogan, acquired a certain resonance

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August 31, 2006In some part, the career of globalisation – both as a phenomenon and as a term -- is congruent with that of the World Trade Organisation. In the early-1990s, when multilateral trade negotiations under the Uruguay Round were mired in seemingly irreconcilable differences between the industrialised countries, “globalisation” as a term featured but rarely in the policy lexicon. Key

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August 30, 2006A week into the uneasy ceasefire in Lebanon, an Israeli battle tank retreating in navigational disarray from an engagement with Hezbollah guerrillas, drove into a minefield laid prior to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the country in May 2000. One soldier was killed and two injured. It was a vivid illustration, even if a perverse one in which perpetrator became victim, of the

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August 22, 2006:Just before formally accepting a U.N. resolution mandating a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, the Israeli government sent a request to the U.S., urging that shipments of a particularly lethal brand of anti-personnel munitions be speeded up. Within a week of the fragile and uneasy ceasefire, Israel had already conducted two armed intrusions into Lebanese territory with deeply

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