China: Still an unknown quantity?China always evokes some uneasiness.Not just for its neightbours but also for even distant powers like the USA.Why?First,it is the only Communist state in the world.Its economic might is growing fast.Its foreign echange reserves,at one trillion,the lrgest in the world.Its fast economic growth,ranked the fourth largest economy in the world,predicted to…
Category: General
A Third Front? Soon in India?
Wild speculations in Delhi and in the major state capitals. Though Dr.Manmohan Singh spoke bravely about his one-year government achievements, not many are convinced. Some surveys, of CEOs or youngsters, feel, some 80 per cent of 18-45 years age group in 10 cities are disappointed. There is wild speculation in the political circles about a…
New mindset, new style of imperial Delhi?
Self-congratulations by one and all! Panchayat Raj is identified with Collectors’ Raj! This is no way to generate employment or reduce poverty! One year of UPA doesn’t even mention employment generation, rural development, poverty reduction! Somehow, the mindset of the New Delhi government is out of sync with the mindset of the rural India. There…
Political parties must have some democratic structures
Political parties are not private properties Election Commission must supervise the party elections The recent “re-election” of Sonia Gandhi as the President of the Congress party was much elaborately reported in the press. Print media played up the issue ,it seemed to demonstrate how the power structure, the sociology of power, is shaping the perceptions…
What decent men can do in politics?
Politics is often discussed in negative terms by those outside politics, being outside power. The reasons are obvious to all decent persons. But what is not often stated by everyone of us, the decent persons, is that there is no life possible without politics, decent or dirty! Every society has to operate and operates only…
Bill Clinton’s BBC Lecture
America’s new found friendship with India What India should do to make world a safe place The year just gone by saw a congregation of Nobel Laureates in Sweden on the occasion of the centenary of Alfred Nobel. But the Nobel Laureates didn’t rise up to the historic challenges of international terrorism. Neither the other…
Intellectual beliefs for a new century!
What India needs is a critical core agenda! On the day when the just installed Manmohan Singh govt. was faced with its first crisis, when Mr. Karunanidhi of the DMK threatened to walk out over portfolio allocation, I bought two old books in an antiquarian bookshop. One, Hugh Gaitskell, 1906-1963. Two, Anthony Crosland’s Socialism. Now,…
Young MPs, too many, in Parliament!
Youth is a symbol of idealism or cynicism? I am sure the young men and women of today are much more sensitive to events in the world and in India. Or, am I wrong in imagining the young MPs who are now elected to Parliament are otherwise? Once they join the more seniors in politics,…