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Banyan The rights approach (18 March 05:12) |
| India's rights-based activism is bound to yield less than it promisesBESIDE the sluggish, stinking Yamuna river, on Delhi’s eastern edge, Kamli minds her two precious goats. These anim... |
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Pakistans role in Afghanistan Tickets to the endgame (18 March 05:12) |
| Pakistan wants a say in ending the war, and it knows how to askA HIGH-LEVEL delegation of Pakistanis is due to sweep into Washington for the restart on March 24th of a “strategic dialo... |
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Child pornography in Japan Outraged innocence (18 March 05:12) |
| A belated attempt to curb a pernicious form of child pornographyIN HER high-school uniform, neatly brushed hair and sweet smile, the young girl represents the innocence of youth. Next she is... |
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Homosexuality in China Collateral damage (18 March 05:12) |
| Neither comrades nor spouses“THERE are three ways of being an unfilial son,” argued Mencius, an ancient Confucian philosopher. “The most serious is to have no heir.” ... |
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Chinese foreign policy Not pointing or wagging but beckoning (18 March 05:12) |
| Defensive and assertive in its words, China for the time being has a bark that is worse than its bite“WE ARE opposed to the practice of engaging in mutual finger-pointing among countri... |
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Banyan Not whaling but drowning (11 March 04:13) |
| In a sea of international opprobrium. But a compromise may be at handIF YOU’RE tempted by a slab of meat gristle which surrenders little but an ooze of grease when chewed, then youR... |
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Rigging Myanmars election Belt braces and army boots (11 March 04:13) |
| The generals leave nothing to chanceTHE junta ruling Myanmar has had 20 years to digest the lessons from the country’s most recent election. It was trounced by the National League for ... |
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China mulls a property tax An odd sort of tax (11 March 04:13) |
| That some liberals want and local governments fear A GRANDMOTHER killed trying to stop developers flattening her home; university graduates forced to live in crowded slums: China’s ebu... |
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Elections in the Philippines Vote before the system crashes (11 March 04:13) |
| Technology complicates life for vote-riggers and counters alikeRIGGED elections and the instability they create have been the bane of the Philippines for much of its democratic history. Fili... |
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Koreans in Japan Taxation without representation (11 March 04:13) |
| The DPJ stumbles in its efforts to grant foreigners the voteBY RIGHTS, giving long-term South Korean residents in Japan the right to vote in local elections should be uncontroversial. They p... |
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Economic reform in Malaysia Out with the new (11 March 04:13) |
| Najib wavers over undoing affirmative-action policiesWHEN Najib Razak took office last April as Malaysia’s prime minister, the timing could hardly have been worse. The export-led econo... |
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Indian politics and women Indian women on the march (11 March 04:13) |
| An historic change in the offing; but India’s ruling party may be overreaching itselfYELLING dementedly, seven lawmakers mobbed the chairman of the Indian parliament’s upper hous... |
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Koreans in Japan Taxation without representation (11 March 04:13) |
| The DPJ stumbles in its efforts to grant foreigners the voteBY RIGHTS, giving long-term South Korean residents in Japan the right to vote in local elections should be uncontroversial. They p... |
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Vietnams economy The Tet effect (04 March 04:47) |
| Worries about renewed overheatingDURING Tet, the lunar new year holiday, money is everywhere in Vietnam. It is dished out to children, gambled in roadside card-games, and splurged on gifts, ... |
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Indias Muslims and job quotas The call to poll (04 March 04:47) |
| Politicians vie for poor-Muslim votesFIFTEEN years after he migrated with his family to the bright lights of Delhi, Muhammad Naushad has little to show for it. An illiterate 20-year-old weav... |
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The feud in South Koreas ruling party Feud for thought (04 March 04:47) |
| The defining battle of Lee Myung-bak’s presidency nears its climaxODDLY for a politician, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, has never hidden his loathing of politics. Durin... |
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Thaksin Shinawatra Divided loyalties (04 March 04:47) |
| Some scent compromise; more fear a looming showdownIN THAILAND politics has long been about compromise rather than conviction. Political parties run on expediency, not ideology, which makes ... |
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Indonesias parliamentary showdown Unchaining the reformers (04 March 04:47) |
| After a hard-won battle, President Yudhoyono has a chance to start againFEZ-WEARING members of Indonesia’s parliament called each other transvestites, yelled and scuffled. Outside, the... |
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Banyan The Chinese are coming (04 March 04:47) |
| To a sitting room, mobile telephone or supermarket screen near you soonON MARCH 1st China Daily got its biggest makeover since the newspaper was launched in 1981 as China’s first Engli... |
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Tajikistans flawed election Change you cant believe in (04 March 04:47) |
| A rigged vote keeps the ruling party in power in a failing stateTO THE surprise of no one, the governing People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan (PDPT) won a landslide victory in parli... |
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Indias Naxalite insurgency Not a dinner party (25 February 04:46) |
| India’s Maoist guerrillas carry out two slaughters, then offer a truceSHORTLY before midnight on February 17th residents of Phulwari, a village in India’s northern state of Bihar... |
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Banyan The mother of all dictatorships (25 February 04:46) |
| To understand North Korea, look not to Confucius or the Soviet Union, but to fascist 1930s JapanTHE face that North Korea presents to the world is widely held to be unreal. Kim Jong Il once ... |
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Animal welfare in China Off the menu (25 February 04:46) |
| The right to eat cats and dogs is under threatAT THE National People’s Congress (see main story), the Communist Party decides what laws to draft and when they get passed. But public pr... |
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Migrant workers in Thailand Inhospitality (25 February 04:46) |
| Life gets harder for Thailand’s guest-workersTHEY sew bras, peel shrimps, build blocks of flats and haul fishing-nets. In return, migrant workers in Thailand are paid poorly, if at all... |
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Western aims in Afghanistan Played for fools (25 February 04:46) |
| Hamid Karzai’s shenanigans make the going even harder for NATOEVER since the aftermath of last year’s disastrous presidential election in Afghanistan, Western diplomats have been... |
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Tackling Japans bureaucracy Floundering in the foggy fortress (25 February 04:46) |
| The DPJ is finding that it needs to befriend its bureaucrats, as well as bash themYOSUKE KONDO, 44, is one of those Young Turks in Japan’s five-month-old government who took office eag... |
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Chinas National Peoples Congress Democracy in action (25 February 04:46) |
| Making sure that China’s supreme legislative body is toothlessYAO LIFA, a primary schoolteacher who in 1998 became one of the first legislators in China to be elected without the backi... |
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Clarification Maratha (25 February 04:46) |
| Last week’s Banyan column used the term “Maratha” in a sense that was interchangeable with “Marathi” or “Marathispeaker “. “Maratha”, ho... |
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The politics of repression in China What are they afraid of (18 February 04:12) |
| The economy is booming and politics stable. Yet China’s leaders seem edgy“THE forces pulling China toward integration and openness are more powerful today than ever before,”... |
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Banyan A Bollywood song and dance (18 February 04:12) |
| In praise of a film star who has seen off the violent mob running India's commercial capitalLAW-ABIDING Mumbaikars, as residents of India’s tinsel-town are known, celebrated the releas... |
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Repression in Myanmar Captive nation (18 February 04:12) |
| A token release from a growing gulagTHE generals who rule Myanmar do not care much for outside scrutiny. So the country is hardly fertile ground for Tomas Ojea Quintana, a United Nations env... |
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Manipur State of concern (18 February 04:12) |
| A wretched, forsaken corner of the world’s biggest democracySURROUNDED by troops, the suspected militant saw the vehicle already waiting to take his corpse to the morgue. He expected t... |
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Private armies in the Philippines The warlords way (18 February 04:12) |
| After the massacre, the show goes onIN THE Philippines politics is always local and often thuggish. Small-time politicians aspire to be warlords, using hired muscle to deter rivals and rustl... |
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Texting in China Well-red (18 February 04:12) |
| Chinese communism’s classic textsTHE year of the Tiger began this week as usual in China with cascades of fireworks and, as is now also the custom, of celebratory text messages on mobi... |
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The war in Afghanistan Crack open the fruit juice (18 February 04:12) |
| Coalition forces enjoy one of their better weeksNO CHAMPAGNE, one assumes, for General Stanley McChrystal. To the chagrin of his German and Italian colleagues, the earnest American leading N... |
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Terrorism in India On a short fuse (18 February 04:12) |
| South Asia’s big rivals prepare to talk. Another bomb goes offIN THE 15 months since Pakistani militants launched a three-day assault on Mumbai, India has been largely terror-free. Thi... |
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Chinas embattled dissidents Tougher and tougher (11 February 04:08) |
| Dissent becomes even more dangerousIN A new mood of even sharper hostility towards dissent, China is coming down hard on the country’s small but courageous community of human-rights ac... |
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India and GM food Without modification (11 February 04:08) |
| A setback for GM in IndiaHUNDREDS of farmers in long, faded cotton sarongs swarmed outside an auditorium at Bangalore University on February 6th. They were waiting for India’s Environm... |
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Jailed and tortured in Myanmar Paying the price (11 February 04:08) |
| The terrible fate of two brave menIT TAKES great courage and commitment to translate for a foreign journalist in Myanmar. Two men who helped The Economist after Cyclone Nargis, which killed ... |
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North Koreas regime trips up Market forces 1 brute force 0 (11 February 04:08) |
| An embarrassing climb-down puts Kim Jong Il in a difficult positionHOWEVER loathsome his neighbours find Kim Jong Il, the nuclear-armed North Korean dictator, most admit that beneath the big... |
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NATOs planned offensive in Afghanistan Get out of the way (11 February 04:08) |
| NATO tries the power of advertisingFOR months now United States Marines in Helmand, Afghanistan’s bloodiest province, have been sporting T-shirts proclaiming their intention: “Ju... |
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Banyan Uncrowning Gloria (11 February 04:08) |
| In the Philippines, politics implies neither policies nor progressTHE lethal carnival that counts for election season in the Philippines began officially on February 9th. It comes to a head ... |
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Sri Lankan politics Lock up the losers (11 February 04:08) |
| The president tightens his gripNOT content with trouncing his main opponent, Sarath Fonseka, in Sri Lanka’s presidential election last month, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has had him ar... |
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Malaysian politics There they go again (04 February 04:11) |
| The opposition leader treads a familiar path into the dockSLINGING mud at opponents is a staple of most democracies, even if voters might prefer a more sensible debate. In Malaysia, a prudis... |
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Tibet Pilgrims and progress (04 February 04:11) |
| It is still repression, not development, that keeps Tibet stableON THE corner of Ramoche Temple Road, a bustling alley where the ethnic violence that engulfed Lhasa nearly two years ago firs... |
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Sri Lankas post-election crackdown Sore winners (04 February 04:11) |
| How not to celebrate a victoryOPTIMISTS hoped that, after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s stunning victory in Sri Lanka’s presidential election on January 26th, he might be magnanimous to hi... |
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Australias expanding population Hot dry and crowded (04 February 04:11) |
| Can there be too many Australians?AS HE prepares to call an election later this year Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, is hoping his government’s handling of the global fin... |
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Sri Lankas currency A new 1000-rupee note (04 February 04:11) |
| FOR some members of Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority, the defeat of the country’s Tamil Tiger rebels last year belongs to a glorious martial tradition. As the architect of this tri... |
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Banyan Asias never-closer union (04 February 04:11) |
| Regional economic integration has a long, long way to goDOES an “Asian project”, comparable to the European one, exist? And is it desirable? Professors on Singaporean campuses, d... |
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Bihars remarkable recovery On the move (28 January 04:10) |
| Bihar has blossomed under Nitish Kumar. But his reforms need deeper rootsON A rural road in Araria, a poor district in the Indian state of Bihar, a roadblock impedes traffic. Not so long ago... |
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