CALCUTTA -THE CITY THAT REFUSES TO DIE
Nowhere else in India do people engulf you as they do in Calcutta. From the moment you step off your train or plane, and begin…
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CALCUTTA’S INDIANS TAKE ELECTIONS IN STRIDE
21 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited Calcutta, Nov 21, Reuters – The six Bengalis splashing around a fire hydrant inches from…
Commonwealth chief says African democracy growing
20 March 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 20 (Reuter) – Democracy has taken root in most African countries but…
What the Government Needs to Do Now
Despite the crisis, a clear message must be sent to the investor community that India is open for business. There was an initial spurt of…
CALCUTTA IS FOEVER
Thirty years ago, a dishevelled man leaned across and shouted at me in the smoke-filled, raucous Olympia bar on Calcutta’s Park Street: “Calcutta is forever!”…
Deal Chahta Hai
A laughter club in Mumbai is forced to “zip it” because a humourless neighbour is disturbed, not long after a 63-year-old cartoon unleashes a cleansing…
Most Powerful Women
Our Prime Minister can seem like an accidental politician. Speaking publicly, he comes across as earnestly wooden, and when he addressed the nation on September…
Friend in Need
The Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (RSS) is everybody’s favourite bugbear. So perhaps it was inevitable that it would be accused of having a hand in the…
A LONE PRIME MINISTER IN A NATION OF PRESIDENT
Quit moaning and hear the good news, folks! India is going to be the world’s largest beef exporter in 2012, beating out Australia and Brazil…
KILLING ME SOFTLY
He took a deep breath of air. Once again he caught a strangeness on the wind, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither odour nor perfume—just strange,…
APOCALYPSE NOW
Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi, Gaya, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Muzaffarpur. Nine of the world’s ten most polluted cities listed by the World Health Organization are in…
THE AIR IS THICK
The Good news is that both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress seem to have finally woken up to the looming catastrophe of air pollution…