At times like this, with the air heavier, hotter and wetter than in a sauna, we Bhadravasis long for the cool breeze of reason to blow in soothing gusts across our stressed landscape. It is a good time to dip our toes in the scriptures. Let me start with the Bhagavad Gita, that treasure trove…
This weekend Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Nepal on his third foreign trip in ten weeks. By the end of September he will also have taken in Japan and the United States. Looming large on his itinerary will be China, which he visited four times as Gujarat’s chief minister in his quest for…
When he won power 13 months ago, Narendra Modi promised he would reel out a governance thriller that was high on quality, aesthetics, story line, dialogues and soothing background music. He would give his jaded audience something to applaud for its sheer integrity, performance and lasting impact. Sadly, over the past ten days the government…
Perhaps it is because every tremor registers as an earthquake on social media, but we seem besieged by one ‘not again’ moment after another. Whether it is suspect instant noodles or larvae-infested baby food or lecherous taxi drivers, is India simply predisposed towards badness, or are we just too much of a glass-half-empty nation? Let’s…
Somewhere, through the unbearable din of television and anti-social media this week, I saw one tweet that plaintively asked why we were hearing so much from everybody but not enough from Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Brazil. Our prime minister met the leaders of China, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, but coverage back…
When a little girl named Topsy is asked in Uncle Tom’s Cabin if she knew who made her, she says, “I expect I grow’d.” Today, Arun Jaitley will declare financial independence when he unveils Budget 2014 without the Planning Commission (PC) breathing down his neck. True, the Budget drafters in the Prime Minister’s Office and…
Our members of parliament sowed the wind in the 15th Lok Sabha and are reaping the whirlwind in the 16th Lok Sabha. The last Lok Sabha worked only for 61% of its scheduled time, the worst in the past half-century. The Bharatiya Janata Party was in very aggressive opposition to the United Progressive Alliance. There…
Round about this time, we ought to have been chilling our champagne and getting ready to exult in, and celebrate, a year of dramatic and positive change under the inspiring leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Vision, vim, vigour, and vitality should have been the keywords for Year One of the Modi Era. Yet the…
To begin with, Modi is under microscopic watch and Deng never was. Modi has a good majority in the lower house of Parliament, but that does not mean lawmakers will blindly rubber-stamp his legislative efforts. If you do the arithmetic the National Democratic Alliance stands little chance of a majority in the Rajya Sabha, even…
The Indian ryot, or peasant cultivator, has always been a political football. When we think of a farmer most of us think, this man is getting subsidised water, electricity, seeds, fertilizer. The government buys his harvest. The government is keen to gift him a bank account under the Jan Dhan Yojana, even if he has…
One of my prized possessions is a fossilised limpet, a kind of sea snail that attaches itself very, very tightly to rocks. The fossil must be hundreds of thousands of years old. It must have been prised off a rock with some force, the kind that is trying to get many of our privileged leaders…
One year ago, as voting got underway in our national elections, I titled my first column in this newspaper A Witch’s Brew’. That referred to the choices India’s voters had. Now we know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had to quaff quite a potent concoction since he rode to power. In equal parts, he…
The Narendra Modi government has been taking a few hard knocks. It learned that sweet talk in Maharashtra’s sugar belt, or at a gaudy wedding celebration in a dusty town in the Uttar Pradesh bad lands, is just that: in politics, your friends always have one eye cocked at a higher seat of power. Your…
There is a new sense of purposefulness in government. Many of the early steps Modi has taken reflect his Chief Executive Officer style in Gujarat. He does not believe in endless meetings and buck-passing. It seemed like the rhyming slogans, the election jingles, and the grandiloquence of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto were all that…
Damyata, datta, dayadhvam. “This very thing the heavenly voice of thunder repeats da, da, da, that is, control yourselves, give, be compassionate.” In the ancient Hindu text Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Prajapati or the creator is asked by his three-fold progeny — gods, men and demons —for advice, and he utters the syllable da three times. Self-control,…
The PMO website is taking on the busyness of Modi’s own website. Within hours of Munde’s death, the list of cabinet ministers was updated with a blank space next to the ministries of rural development… If you believe in signs and omens, all the days and dates this year coincide with 1947, our year of…
Arvind Kejriwal is the India Rubber Man. A Leo in politics if there is one, charismatic, mercurial, impetuous and likeable despite his foibles, he has re-invented himself time and again and rebounded into a new avatar. IIT trained engineer, IRS tax officer, Right to Information activist, anti-corruption crusader, and sidekick to Anna Hazare, Kejriwal couldn’t…
I felt a deep sadness as I listened to the hysteria over the suspicious donations that went into the Aam Aadmi Party’s coffers ten months ago. The shouting was all about campaign financing. It broke out five days before voting in the Delhi assembly election, and it completely drowned out all talk about what the…
Modi went part-way towards BJP’s muscular defence strategy with the appointment of former Intelligence Bureau chief Ajit Doval as his National Security Advisor The Rajyabhishek in the magnificent Rashtrapati Bhavan forecourt was a sight for sore eyes, and understandably some of us went ape even if we were not among the 4,000 people attending Narendra…
Long, long ago, before they invented news in 140 characters and we could remember our lives only through social media timelines, some of us believed it was possible to have our leaders display lofty politics and selfless diplomacy That is not true, of course. Politics and diplomacy both involve winning people over; in the end,…
Just as I sat down to write this column came news that those Indians who can afford them are going to be paying a lot more this summer for Alphonso mangoes. The European Union has lifted its ban on Indian mango imports, and upwards of 16 million mangoes will flood British supermarkets alone. The Indians…
One word summed up the five-week election: certitude. From the very beginning most of us were certain that the National Democratic Alliance would win power. It is fairly certain that the Congress party will suffer its worst defeat in 16 general elections. Over 300,000 kilometres, 440 rallies, 1,350 holograms, 4,000 chai pe charchas, and a…
On New Year’s Eve I attended the ‘The Book of Mormon’ at the Eugene O’Neill Theater on Broadway and as the rollicking, raunchy musical unfolded on stage, marveled again at America’s ability to laugh at itself and its idols. The play has won awards on both sides of the Atlantic since it premiered four years…
The end of campaigning in Amethi in a cacophony of anger, derogation, and obloquy was briefly leavened by “Twitter joining Rajinikanth.” The Superstar’s followers piled up at the rate of 20,000 an hour. Not even Narendra Modi, one of the Thalaivar’s first followers, could have matched that. Fantasy had trumped politics. As if in affirmation,…
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.- Julius Caesar, Act 1 By Wednesday elections had been held for 438 seats, or four-fifths of the 16th Lok Sabha, and it seemed like a good point to draw breath and take stock of the men and women who…
Certainly not the growing number of people who believe that “free speech” means a loose mouth and the abuse of certain classes or communities. Imran Masood, Azam Khan and Mulayam Singh Yadav are not afraid of Narendra Modi. Nor is the swelling saffron sena if you believe Ram Rajya is about to dawn. In its…
“There are two kinds of people—Greeks, and everyone else who wish they was Greek.” Gus Portokalos in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ I couldn’t stop laughing every time the father of the bride in this comedy which I watched (not for the first time) with my family a few days ago, claims every word in…
Several moons ago a car driver in Chennai told me the fascinating story of a young man whom he drove around in Coimbatore during the 2009 general elections. At every stop, the driver said, the young man would return with a bulging sack that he would stuff into the boot. The young man was collecting…
This column will be published exactly ten months after Narendra Modi took office in the South Block. It is as good a time as any to think of Lee Kuan Yew, whose funeral Modi will attend next Sunday, and of Singapore and India and their fates and futures. Lee was a strongman in every sense…
First election since 1984 where a national party is looking like sure-fire winner Last weekend, just before the first phase of voting in India’s 16th general election opened, a group of people gathered in Delhi for a “nation-building” meeting. For two days they thrashed and turned in their search for a better alternative to the…
Which party will you vote for? It is a bit like England’s witch trials in the Middle Ages. You were dunked in water as a test; if you did not drown, you were pronounced a sorceress and burnt at the stake. Whichever government you elect, the choice is not clear, clean, or comforting. By…
More than once in the past couple of weeks, before he climbed into his plane to fly off to more island nations, Narendra Modi was at his histrionic, chest-thumping best in Parliament. His voice rose and fell as he spoke, now in a shouted challenge and then dropping to a whisper. MPs, and a larger…
It is a wonder that we Indians find the time to accomplish all that we do. Huge chunks of our working days are swallowed up by totally unproductive toing, froing, talking, shouting, negotiating, and surviving. It is also a wonder that we aim to accomplish all that we want to. There is no scarcity of…
In the late 15th century, an anonymous playwright wrote Everyman, widely billed as the world’s greatest morality play of all time, in which the gentle aam admi, visited by sinister Death, is saved only by his Good Deeds after his Pride, Beauty, Strength, Discretion and Five Wits have all deserted him. What Good Deeds…
It has been a rather bewildering week, with things not what they seem to be. The two Rohtak sisters who beat up their molesters on a bus: did the incident really happen? The Uber cab rape allegation: should all web based taxi services be banned in India or should we strengthen our technology, our telecommunications,…
The good news is that everybody– the International Monetary Fund was the latest to fall in line on Tuesday– agrees with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate will be a modest 7% in 2019-20. The 0.3 percentage point reduction in its forecast is because of “a weaker-than-expected…
Bhopal (Reuter) -Investigators probing the world’s worst industrial disaster have uncovered the steel tank from which poisonous gas leaked last December, killing 2.500 people, police said yesterday. Excavation work began last week and the tank has been freed of its casing of concrete, sand and charcoal, police in this central Indian city said. On December…
Dhaka, Aug. 11: Bangladesh’s state minister for local government and rural development Syed Abul Hossain has resigned after he used a second passport on a recent private visit to Singapore, officials at the Prime Minister’s office said on Monday. They said the minister tended his resignation letter on Sunday requesting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed…
Hong Kong: A growing number of Americans are paying $3,000 to adopt Chinese orphan baby girls, a Hong Kong newspaper said on Sunday. The Sunday Morning Post said demand was so high that the United States consulate in the south China city of Guangzhou had set up an adoption unit staffed by a state department…
WASHINGTON, July 21.— The House of Representatives’ Merchant Marine Committee today approved a Bill to block petroleum shipments to any foreign country unless the Secretary of Commerce certified that such exports would not interfere with national defence or security. The Bill arose out a committee of inquiry into shipments of petroleum products to Russia,…
Websites and portals across Asia are latching on to a new Reuters editorial product put together in a new way. It’s barely seven months old but already the Asia Online Report is carving a niche for itself. The service could point the way for the Reuters editorial product of the future. What is an online…
IF IT’S THE ONLY WAY OUT Feel the need to shout. Hurl your hurt at me; Let anger tinkle in sparkling shards If it must To my feet, to my toes that redden, My blood a curious rust. Grow roots into my stone perch. Come, hang your rage, Festoon my granite arms. Don’t let this…
SHYAM BENEGAL Shyam Benegal grew up in the shadow of the Charminar at Hyderabad. Perhaps that childhood gave him two important outlooks the first of the quintessentially rural Andhra, the second of a more polished, Urduised, Hyderabad. Whatever the reason, Shyam decided, at a very early age, to grow up and make movies. In this…
Fali S Nariman, 79, is one of India’s most respected lawyers and jurists. He is uniquely placed to examine the state of the Three Estates — the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary — having been a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1999 to 2005. Nariman has led from the front both in India…
Former Chief Justice of India, Justice PN Bhagwati, underlines the shortcomings in the arbitration system in India, in a discussion with Publishing Director Chaitanya Kalbag. He stresses the need to make arbitration cheap and speedy through the combined efforts of lawyers and arbitrators and moots legislation, if need be, in order to make it an…
(Chaitanya Kalbag has been a journalist, editor and manager for over 33 years. In his most recent assignment as Editor in Chief of Hindustan Times, India’s second-largest English newspaper, Kalbag headed a team of more than 700 journalists across eight editions. He was responsible for reinforcing professional standards and embedding strong standards of accountability and…
The Puranas say it took the gods and demons a thousand years, with some help from Vishnu who took on the form of a tortoise, to churn the Milky Ocean before it yielded the divine nectar (amrit). The samudra manthan also produced a deadly poison, halahala, which Shiva obligingly consumed. The churning of India’s education…
If you are of a certain age, and not one of the millennial Indians who will turn 18 this year and be eligible to vote, you might remember watching The Net, the 1995 thriller starring Sandra Bullock as a cybersecurity expert who gets into a whole lot of trouble with cyberterrorists, who erase her identity…
The prime minister’s speech at the World Economic Forum was sweeping and aspirational (one observer said he was “preaching to the choir”). He presented India as the most attractive investment destination in the world, with its democracy, its young population, its diversity and the headroom it has in catching up with the West’s levels of…
They say the best way to persuade somebody is to plant an idea in their head and get them to start speaking about it as if it were their idea. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shown he is a great persuader. Persuasion is one thing: what about implementation? Over the past four years, the Bharatiya Janata…
The government’s ‘Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas’ (Clean Intent, Right Development) campaign is expectation management in an election year. Nineteen months after demonetisation, we still do not have a final count for the total volume of banned currency notes returned to the nation’s banks. Are we really a less-cash economy now? Authorities had to scramble to…
Nobody with even a rudimentary interest in national security will dispute that the Indian Air Force (IAF) needs more firepower. Currently, it has 600 combat aircraft, and 33 active squadrons against a sanctioned strength of 44. We face two implacable foes, on our western and northern borders. India’s 2018-19 defence budget totalled Rs 2.82 trillion,…
Next week, when PM Narendra Modi makes his fifth Independence Day speech from the Red Fort, he might want to remind us that in 2022, the New India he has promised will arrive in more ways than one. Just four years from now, the World Bank predicts, India will jump past China to hit 1.411…
To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man’s injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man’s superior. – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Male-dominated. Super-hierarchical. Forgiving. Stanford sociologist Marianne Cooper listed…
Earlier this month the United Nations issued its first set of ‘diya’ postage stamps to mark Diwali and the triumph of good over evil. It was a nice gesture (and I possess a sheet of the stamps) but a reminder of the continuing conundrum of why India punches far below its weight in the world’s…
Let me put it simply: the government is performing two balancing acts simultaneously. In order to get to this perilous position, it has time and again turned precedent on its head, laying it open for the next administration to also throw caution to the winds. This is not good for a country of our size.…
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. More precisely, it grows from the air-to-air missiles mounted on an upgraded but ageing MiG 21 Bison fighter-interceptor flown by the intrepid Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who took on U.S.-made Pakistani F-16s on Feb 27. Around the time the young pilot was repatriated to India…
Greta Thunberg’s emotional speech at the UN Climate Action Summit on Sept 23 was followed by Donald Trump’s mocking tweet: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.” But we all know that the 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl-activist is right. The warnings are crowding in, fast and ominous.…
In 2018, India’s per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) was $2015.60, according to the World Bank. This makes sense– our economy is currently sized at $2.7 trillion, and our population is around 1.35 billion. This is considerably behind the United States ($62,641) and not even a fourth of China’s $9,770.80. The Bank’s data show that India’s…
It is amazing how things come around. I was listening to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Houston speech. After speaking in several Indian languages, Modi said: “Maine itna hi kaha hai: Everything is fine.” Suddenly, I remembered the theme song from 3 Idiots. Eight years have gone by and the lyrics could have been written today.…
Money is making Election 2019 go around. Currency with the public totalled Rs. 20.64 trillion on March 15, five days after the elections were announced. This compared with Rs. 12.48 trillion on March 7, 2014, two days after the previous Lok Sabha election was announced. Where is the less-cash economy that demonetisation was supposed to…
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh placed his seal of approval on Sunday on Lage Raho Munnabhai. In South Africa on a three-day trip long on history and symbolism, the prime minister said he was “heartened” to see that the latest Sanjay Dutt blockbuster “is a film about a young man’s discovery of the universal. and timeless…
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize for 2005 in recognition of his “invaluable contribution towards social and political transformation through dialogue and tolerance”, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Monday towards the end of a three-day visit to South Africa. Tutu, who will turn 75 on October 7, won the Nobel…
Islamabad’s response to request for cooperation on Mumbai blasts will test the commitment given in Havana Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday that Pakistan would have to prove that it was serious about joining hands with India in cracking down on terrorism, and the first test was the Mumbai train explosion findings. “How else…
Durban, September 30 PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh touched down in balmy weather in Durban on Saturday on his first visit to South Africa to honour a man who, 100 years ago, chose to stand up against an iniquitous system and set in motion events that have profoundly shaped history ever since. The Prime Minister boarded…
It says a lot about Narendra Modi’s absence of apprehension over Friday’s no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha that the same day the foreign ministry announced his visit to Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa. He will be away during the first full week of the monsoon session, which could be the last of the 16th…
Sometime over the next few weeks, most likely in his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will formally launch what has already been billed as the world’s biggest public healthcare programme, Ayushman Bharat, or the National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM). The scheme was announced in the 2018-19 Budget and approved by the Cabinet in…
I like only one kind of fudge and one kind of shake, the chocolate kind. And I especially dislike fudges and shakes of the economic kind. The Narendra Modi government, by no means on its last legs, has treated us to quite a bit of the second type over the past two years. It’s not…
Public memory is all too amnesic., and the Bhagalpur blinding’s which sickened and shocked the nation when they were exposed in November 1980 have almost become history. Even the dogged legal battle for justice by the blinded has virtually disappeared from newspaper columns, lowering a ‘curtain of silence on one of the most shameful episodes…
Family planning in India has always been dogged by a debilitating combination of moral, sociological, superstitious and even political complexes. Post-1977, however, while the nation’s population control effort has acquired the coy appellation of ‘family welfare’, encouraging work has been done towards adopting newer and safer techniques of birth control. Last fortnight Dr Badri Nath…
Not since Brutus has there been such a stab in such a back. No wonder Indira Gandhi was so “absolutely livid” and her daughter-in-law Maneka so studiously low-key. The culprit: Maneka’s mother Amiteshwar Anand, who fetched Mrs Gandhi a resounding snub by selling her chintzy. down-at-heel magazine Surya India and its Hindi counterpart to two…
ALL GOOD Hindus hope to reincarnate as better Hindus, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be celebrating its second birthday on April 5 with the conviction that it is well on the way to establishing itself as a “nation alternative”. More than anything else, a strident section in the party is anxious to shed…
For centuries, cranes have been held up as auspicious birds in many countries, serving as symbols of long life and happiness. Ironically, however, the graceful Siberian crane (Grus leucogeranus) is in grave danger of being reduced to total extinction only around 250 of these birds exist world-wide today. The crane family, Gruidae, itself is the…
…says Bhagwati, feels it is a fallacy to think our farmers would be swamped by global competition; wants India to be ready for freer trade in farm sector They call economics a dismal science, but it need not be so when Dr Jagdish Bhagwati discusses it. The Columbia professor, who has long been a frontrunner…
China’s official media yesterday attacked a “small group” they accused of plotting to overthrow communist rule and said the group had help from the highest level of the party. The front-page article, printed in every major newspaper in the Chinese capital and read in full on state television and radio, also accused the plotters of…
New Delhi (Reuter)—Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s peace pact to end three years of sectarian turmoil in Punjab has won wide support but analysts say he still faces obstacles in curbing Sikh unrest. Gandhi, a former airline pilot with five years in politics and eight months in power, confounded critics Wednesday by defusing an explosive…
By Chaitanya Kalbag NEW DELHI (Reuter): India’s new Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, yet to win his spurs in government, has to quickly take a series of tough political decisions to consolidate his power. He must end squabbles inside his ruling Congress (I) Party, decide by the end of this month on holding general elections…
Leader’s slaying could trigger worst crisis since India gained independence By CHAITANYA KALBAG Reuters News Service NEW DELHI, India – Indira Gandhi’s assassination Wednesday threatened to plunge India into the worst crisis in its 37 years of independence. The prime minister fell riddled with bullets by her own Sikh bodyguards just two months before the…
New Delhi—For the grey-bearded Sikh sitting in a cosy academic study India’s Punjab crisis is no longer a series of grim newspaper headlines. Last week he had to abandon plans to drive through his home state because he feared attacks by angry crowds of Hindu militants roaming the highways. As communal violence continues in Punjab…
By CHAITANYA KALBAG Bhopal, Dec 18—Some of the 250,000 people who fled the central Indian city of Bhopal fearing a fresh leak of poison gas started returning to their homes today but over 12,000 remained in camps set up by the Government. Their return was apparently prompted by the successful neutralization of more of…
By CHAITANYA KALBAG New Delhi, Dec 11. India’s ruling Congress (I) Party, which celebrates its centenary next year, is fighting for political survival as much as a parliamentary majority in national elections in two weeks’ time. After years of unchallenged supremacy as India’s dominant political force, the party is being rocked by an internal debate…
New Delhi: The Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi, yesterday denied local press reports that she had accused a US espionage agency of fomenting Sikh secessionist activity. Mrs Gandhi told reporters in Himachal Pradesh state, in the foothills of the Himalayas, that she had merely quoted a Washington-datelined press report. She did not identify the report. Addressing…
Uneasy ties with neighbours By Chaitanya Kalbag NEW DELHI, (Reuter): Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s massive victory in the Indian general election has given him new freedom to tackle his country’s un-easy relations with its neighbours, especially Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Rajiv, armed with a huge parliamentary majority, declared immediately after the election that good relations…
Bitter squabbles divide party By CHAITANYA KALBAG New Delhi, Nov 4—India’s new Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, yet to win his spurs in Government, has to quickly take a series of tough political decisions to consolidate his power. He must end squabbles inside his ruling Congress (I) Party, decide by the end of this…
By CHAITANYA KALBAG, of Reuter, in Thimbu Tucked away in the eastern Himalayas lives the ruler of a fairyland little kingdom who must be one of the world’s most eligible bachelors because he is the world’s youngest reigning monarch. The personal life of the Druk Gyalpo (precious ruler of the dragon people) is not gossiped…
By CHAITANYA KALBAG of Reuter THIMPHU, Bhutan. —”Do not give pens, sweets or medicine to villagers,” warns a Bhutanese government guidebook for tourists and mountaineers. For a country described in official brochures as “perhaps the last of the Shangrilas,” Bhutan is not in a hurry to modernize its tourist image. Called “Druk Yul” (Land of…
By CHAITANYA KALBAG of Reuters through NZPA Thimphu, Bhutan On many mountainsides in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, Buddhist prayer wheels powered by streams tumbling through birch and pine trees spin in endless movement. The wheels turn on present-day gear shafts that speak of modern Bhutan, moving slowly towards development and yet rooted…
Reuter BEIJING-The government said Monday that it will begin a crackdown on compact disc piracy during the Chinese New Year festival that kicks off Jan. 31, addressing a concern of the United States that has threatened to unleash a trade war. A senior U.S. trade official said in Hong Kong that a new Chinese…
Reuter HONG KONG-North Korea said Monday that any plan to supply it with South Korean-style reactors could jeopardise its nuclear deal with the United States. According to the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman quoted “foreign news reports” saying the United States,…
Both the ruling party and the main opposition party are embroiled in leadership disputes that could lead to party splits. Reuter SEOUL-South Korea’s main opposition party, locked in intense factional strife, was on the verge of a split Monday with its leader threatening to quit and form a new political group. The battle in the…
Reuter TAIPEI-Taiwan’s 7-Eleven chain store, friend to late-night shoppers and darling of foreign investors, is seeking to transfer its winning ways to a potentially huge market in China. President Chain Store Corp., a subsidiary of President Enterprises Corp., plans to list on Taiwan’s stock exchange in 1996 to raise money for its envisaged rapid growth,…
Reuter BEIJING-Chinese President Jiang Zemin used Monday’s visit by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to rebuke Washington for interfering in internal Chinese affairs concerning Taiwan and Tibet. But Jiang, who is also Communist Party leader, also praised unspecified “important and positive progress” in bilateral ties over the past year, the Xinhua news agency…
Reuter LONDON-It must be one of the biggest regrets of Prince Charles’ life. He lost his chance for happiness with one woman, married the wrong one and now has an uphill struggle to get the public to accept his one-time girlfriend, the only real love of his life. Fresh out of university in 1970, the…
by Chaitanya Kalbag, Reuter, in Bhopal Hundreds of people stand outside the drab white bungalow, clutching yellow X-ray folders and medical prescriptions in a line stretching down the driveway flanked by dry, leafless bushes. A chorus of dry coughs punctuates the slow progress of emaciated men, ragged children and ghost-like Muslim women covered head-to-toe in…
Chaitanya Kalbag takes over as Editor-in-Chief of all editions of the Hindustan Times today. Kalbag brings with him extensive global experience in journalism. His last assignment was with Reuters where he was managing editor and head of editorial operations for Asia since 2000. He joined Reuters in 1983 and worked in several countries-including Hong Kong,…
Govt’s fiscal profligacy has made a mockery of the FRBM Act The government’s fiscal profligacy has made a mockery of the FRBM Act. Pranab Mukherjee sounded pleased earlier this week when he told a TV interviewer that India’s projected fiscal deficit of 6.8 per cent of GDP in 2009-10 was still better than the 11…
Apologising is never easy. Barack Obama knows this now. He made a non-apology apology last week to a Massachusetts police sergeant two days after saying the officer “acted stupidly” in arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr because he was trying to break into his own house. Obama’s decision to wade into a local issue…
“Curiouser and curiouser” sums up India’s economy. There is little or no credit, tepid business and consumer confidence, exports are struggling, and yet gross domestic product (GDP) grew by a healthy 7.7 percent in the January-March quarter, and is seen rising by 7.4 percent in fiscal 2018-19. If you read the Reserve Bank of India’s…
The sub-text to the debate on simultaneous elections is that BJP wants to further centralise power. In 2012, watching Manmohan Singh struggling with a disorderly coalition, an obstreperous cabinet, and a host of powerful state chief ministers, I wrote that he was the lone prime minister in a nation of presidents. In 2014, on the…
One of the smartest things Prime Minister Narendra Modi did after coming to power four years ago was to appoint diehard loyalists as state governors. They were either beholden to him or to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). When the Congress was on top of the heap, it routinely…