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In defence of expense (26 February 08:33) |
| By Arun Kumar Singh Feb 26 : The new defence budget of India will be announced in Parliament today and it would be useful if readers are made aware of a few facts: l From 2001 to 2009, about... |
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Constricting coalitions (03 February 12:13) |
| Inder Malhotra
Feb.03 : THE way the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government Mark II has functioned since its inspiring victory in the Lok Sabha elections over eight months ago is most ... |
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Reimagining Pak (02 February 12:35) |
| K.C. Singh
Feb.02 : India-Pakistan relations have been in suspended animation since the fracas after the Sharm el-Sheikh statement, which was an unsuccessful attempt to restart the dialogue... |
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Civil rights Play safe (01 February 03:15) |
| Jayanthi Natarajan
It has recently been reported that the United States will resort to racial profiling of a new kind. Travellers from 14 designated countries will be screened far more strin... |
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A global warning (31 January 07:16) |
| Arun Nehru
Jan.31 : The first month of the New Year 2010 indicates a difficult year as issues of global warming dominate the global agenda. Despite the failure of the Copenhagen climate cha... |
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Kitchen terrorists (30 January 12:08) |
| Farrukh Dhondy
"Irony is the way to the heart of the sceptic,
Money to the heart of the cynic".
From The Proverbs of Bachchoo
Jan.30 : Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai tells ... |
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The games at Gwadar (29 January 03:22) |
| Arun Kumar Singh
Jan.29 : In 2009, after having done prolonged anti-piracy deployments in the Gulf of Aden for a year, a retired Chinese Admiral publicly propounded the need for the Chinese... |
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Line of Least Resistance (28 January 12:13) |
| Jagmohan
Jan.28 : The report of the Kashmir Working Group, headed by Justice Saghir Ahmed, has once again brought the issue of autonomy to the limelight. This group was set up in pursuance ... |
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Intelligence quotient (27 January 08:20) |
| By P.C. Alexander
Jan 27 : I am surprised at the rather scanty reaction of the public to the views expressed by Union home minister P. Chidambaram on "a new architecture for India’s ... |
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Power of yoga (26 January 09:12) |
| Yogi Ashwini Jan.26 : If we look around — whether its our neighbourhood, our country or the state of the world today — all we can see is chaos. People are struggling over trivial issues.... |
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What do Taliban really want Power (24 January 10:01) |
| By Irfan Husain
Jan 24 : Often, I am asked by readers or friends abroad what the Taliban want. Why, they ask, are they slaughtering hundreds of innocent people wherever they can? What is th... |
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Basu rests above Left (24 January 09:58) |
| By Arun Nehru
Jan 24 : The nation pays homage to comrade Jyoti Basu, a remarkable man and a great politician who commanded both attention and respect. No politician reaches the stature of s... |
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The Pak Army paradox (23 January 12:44) |
| Farrukh Dhondy
"When your back's against the wall,
Turn round and fight! -
The wall won't hit back!"
From The Proverbs
of Bachchoo
Jan.23 : I don't suppose that, say, Benjami... |
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Taliban target morale (22 January 03:30) |
| Indranil Banerjie
Jan.22 : The Taliban attack in the heart of Kabul last Monday (January 18) has been universally described as "brazen". Several terrorists tried to enter the Afgh... |
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Obamas fading lustre (20 January 12:38) |
| By Inder Malhotra
Jan 20 : On completing his first year in the White House, US President Barack Obama has lost some of the shine he had exuded during the campaign trail and, even more, at h... |
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Gentle winds of change (19 January 12:53) |
| R.K. Pachauri
Jan.19 : Today is January 19, exactly a month since the conclusion of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN... |
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The unusual idealist (18 January 04:10) |
| Shikha Mukerjee
Jan.18 : Jyoti Basu was unusual in all sorts of ways; he retired, as he said, "when you fall ill, you cannot even attend office and look at things. Then why should you ... |
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A for accountability (17 January 12:52) |
| By Arun Nehru Jan 17 : The Australian government blames the media for a hysterical response to the violence in Australia directed at Indians; India’s minister of state for external affairs... |
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The autonomy issue (15 January 12:34) |
| S.K. Sinha
Jan.15 : Justice Saghir Ahmed has at long last submitted his working group report, recommending autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir, to the chief minister of the state. This has been ... |
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Spruce up security (14 January 12:36) |
| Arun Kumar Singh
Jan.14 : I visited China in mid-October 2009. The three cities (Beijing, Dalian and Qingdao) which I saw, were as modern as Washington D.C., which I subsequently visited a ... |
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Starvation and suicide (13 January 12:28) |
| P.C. Alexander
Jan.13 : During the last three years, two subjects have been consuming the attention of the world community almost to the exclusion of other equally important subjects. One i... |
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Protect Armys honour (12 January 02:18) |
| Shankar Roychowdhury
Jan.12 : The Indian Army has been under sustained battering in the media around a running series of incidents and allegations regarding senior and middle-level officers... |
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The growth redux (11 January 12:22) |
| Arjun Sengupta
Jan.11 : The New Year began with very good news about the Indian economy. During the last five years, 2004 to 2009, India’s most backward states have shown remarkable growt... |
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A world of equals (10 January 09:11) |
| By Arun Nehru
Jan 10 : The global economy is showing signs of recovery and 2010 may prove to be a very good year. My instinct tells me that both China and India will produce "surprise&... |
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Law of the word (09 January 01:26) |
| Farrukh Dhondy
"A little schadenfreude never hurt nobody"
From Proverbs of the Hun by Herr Bachchoo
Jan.09 : The law of libel is again causing a stir in England as the science w... |
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Can the tiger save India (08 January 05:47) |
| Balbir K. Punj
Jan.08 : Can the tiger save India?
The question is usually posed in reverse order. India has more tigers and possibly more intact tiger habitat complete with prey species fo... |
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Virtues of being vague (07 January 02:41) |
| Srinath Raghavan
Jan.07 : A recurrent theme in contemporary debates on Indian foreign policy is the lament for the absence of a "grand strategy". Academics and analysts repeatedly... |
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Governors Raj bhog (06 January 01:26) |
| Inder Malhotra
Jan.06 : ANDHRA pradesh governor Narayan Dutt Tiwari’s sudden exit from the Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad is a dismal and sleazy affair. He has, of course, stoutly denied all the... |
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Compulsory voting (04 January 08:51) |
| By Jayanthi Natarajan
Jan 04 : The dawn of the new decade brings with it important reflections upon the evolution and strengthening of our democracy. The decade which ended with 2009 saw so... |
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Time to pull out the dragons teeth (03 January 08:11) |
| By Irfan Husain Jan 03 : IN the ancient Greek myth, when Jason and the Argonauts are on their quest to find the golden fleece, one of the more terrifying dangers they face comes from the "dr... |
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Media miracles (03 January 08:07) |
| By Arun Nehru Jan 03 : As the Ruchika Girhotra case gathers momentum, it is important to mention that it is the media that has created another “miracle”, just like it did in the cases pe... |
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The religion of carbon (02 January 10:14) |
| By Farrukh Dhondy
Jan 02 : "I cried because I had no shoes. Then I saw a girl with Jimmy Choos... Which made me laugh, it was quite a treat
This poor girl had size 12 feet" — F... |
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Ten happy fairies (01 January 08:07) |
| By Shiv Visvanathan
Jan 01 : A wish list is a very precise concept. It is not a checklist where one ticks off items to be returned or retrieved. It is not a memorandum which is a reminder t... |
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2010 will test Rahul (31 December 08:09) |
| By Arun Nehru
Dec 31 : The current decade, from 2000 to 2009, witnessed sharp political changes in the structure of governance and in the political fortunes of several leaders. In analysing... |
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Rogues and heroes of the Noughties (31 December 08:04) |
| By Mahir Ali
Dec 31 : BEGINNING in 1929, the Great Depression laid bare the contradictions of capitalism, bringing some of the world’s most formidable economies to their knees. Ten years ... |
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People who made news (30 December 07:56) |
| By Mrinal Pande
Dec 30 : "I imagined myself sitting on the end of a beam of light and imagined what I’d see," wrote Albert Einstein. What would Sonia Gandhi, who turned 63 earli... |
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Healing a nation (29 December 01:11) |
| Patralekha Chatterjee
Dec.29 : Copenhagen showed how fast and far India has traveled geo-politically. The same, alas, cannot be said about the health of the nation. On the international sta... |
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Economy will recover (28 December 02:23) |
| Arjun Sengupta
Dec.28 The Indian economy should recover from the recession caused by the global meltdown. India’s exposure to the world economy is quite limited. It is mainly through the ... |
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Babus at the crossroads (27 December 01:17) |
| Dilip Cherian
Dec.27 : The wheels of Indian bureaucracy are turning and in directions that are sometimes new and occasionally, tried and tested. Yet, there can be little doubt that the past... |
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Free higher education (26 December 09:28) |
| By Ashok Malik
If stakeholders in Indian education look to 2010 with hope and optimism, it is because the year could trigger a decade-long process of genuine expansion of opportunities. Ide... |
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The Christmaswalas (25 December 12:47) |
| Farrukh Dhondy
"If astrology worked Computers wouldn’t" From The Bachchoo Veda
Dec.25 : Three Parsis set out from the East, following the star of fortune. One changes his name ... |
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Obama winner at home (24 December 01:40) |
| S. Nihal Singh
Dec.24 : By any measure, 2009 was Barack Obama’s year. His journey to the White House was extraordinary enough — the first black to become President — but the kind of r... |
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Incoherent Opposition (23 December 12:58) |
| Inder Malhotra
Dec.23 : Except during the 19-month interlude of nightmarish Emergency, India has been and continues to be a lively — if also raucously noisy, indeed contentious — democr... |
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Fighting without arms (22 December 11:54) |
| Shankar Roychowdhury
Dec.22 : Looking from the threshold of 2010, the year 2020 provides a convenient timeline to examine the evolving dimensions of the Indian armed forces. Indian decision... |
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GEZs for sustenance (21 December 02:39) |
| Shiv Visvanathan
Dec.21 : Sometimes the future stands before us in ways we do not fully discern. It could be a metaphor, a shadow, an outline of a form of problem-solving; it could be a kal... |
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Multiple superpowers (20 December 08:21) |
| By Arun Nehru
U.S. President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize while his country wages wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided that the Nobel Peace Pri... |
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How Al hit an iceberg (19 December 09:57) |
| Farrukh Dhondy
"She wasn’t evil She was vain She did me wrong from ignorance..."
From Dreams of Damyanti (Chapter 17) by Bachchoo
Dec.19 : Al Gore, star of the Oscar winning d... |
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Keralas terror trail (18 December 12:31) |
| Balbir K. Punj
Dec.18 : With the exposure of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) in north Kerala and finger of suspicion pointing to People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader and Islamist extremist ... |
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US leads UK follows (17 December 01:31) |
| S. Nihal Singh
Dec.17 : Britain’s new inquiry into the justification for the invasion of Iraq has opened up broader questions of politicians’ respect, or lack of it, for truth and, more... |
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Year of House unrest (16 December 01:39) |
| P.C. Alexander
Dec.16 : Within a few days from today we will be crossing over to the second decade of the 21st century. Those of us born in the 20th century and lived through the first deca... |
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