Letter from the Editor
ONE of the lesser-known areas of media responsibility is its relationship with the law. It is a relationship which is generally little understood, not having…
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Book Review: My Years in an Indian Prison
So much is being written about political prisoners in India these days, that the layman might succumb to the temptation of focusing more on the…
Nuclear war unlikely over Kashmir, leader says
6 February 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 6 (Reuters) – The leader of India’s Kashmir region said on Thursday…
READING THE BAR CODES
“UPON MY WORD: India’s prisons are stuck in a time warp” STRANGE HOW time’s machine travels back and forth at warp speed. Two hundred and…
New Business Families
“If a thousand suns were to rise in the heavens at the same time, the blaze of their light would resemble a little the supreme…
Gender Gag
Sexual harassment can be crude and overt or very subtle, but you know you are being sexually harassed when you experience it. Those around you…
Bihar Press Bill-Battle Cry
Whatever else the government is butter-fingered at doing, it is adept at keeping the results of its impetuosity in a state of continuing suspense’. The…
NOT SELLING VOLUMES
It was a browser’s dream come true kilometres of books that took hold of the bibliophile’s heart-strings and did not stop tugging for hours. For…
A State Ravaged
It was beyond the ken of a civilised society, a blood spattered vindication of a heartless government’s sudden constitutional piety. The carnage began with a…
A Battle Supreme
Titled Judiciary: Attacks and Survival, the speech had been long in coming, the speaker delayed, first by an attack of diabetes in March and then…
Mysterious U-Turn
Although it is a blasphemous thought, it has cropped up in many a legal mind during the last few weeks: if bets were placed on…
Prisoners – Fighting for A Cause
The salaried middle classes have time and again fallen prey to the Government’s more capricious economic decisions. But, one group that has suffered the most…
Jagannath Mishra-Cleared By The Court
HE INDIA-RUBBER man, Jagannath Mishra, had done it again. For months, the Bihar chief minister’s political fate had hung in the balance while the Supreme…
Cheating The Hangman
Convicted killers Billa and Ranga were expected to make headlines last fortnight. Make news, they certainly did, but not the way everybody anticipated. Instead of…
Ends of Justice
Gauhati and Jorhat and small batches people took out processions in protest against the decision to hold the elections. Even political parties opposed to the…
Suppressing Dissent?
Every dissenter is in a minority of one, and K. Ashok Rao, 36, deputy manager in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), is discovering what it…
Hanging Fire
The Quality of justice seemed to be under tremendous strain last fortnight. At issue was the vexatious question of capital punishment. As usual, the shock…
Snag In The Rope
Anticlimax has become the boon companion of the Supreme Court. When the court reopened on July 18 after its summer vacation, it was shadowed by…
The Tamil Tragedy
The 35-km ride from Katunayake International Airport into Colombo in a slow Mitsubishi coach I driven by a nervous Sinhala I is enveloped in silence.…
The Aftermath
GANESHA’S temple had never seen so many supplicants, all with unanswerable prayers Colombo’s Tamils call it Pillaiyar Kovil, and its ornamented gateway on Galle Road…
For Whom The Bill Tolls
One of the misconceptions spawned by the Bihar Press Bill is that it will emasculate Bihar’s journalists. The truth is that Bihar’s journalists have already…
FUTURE TENSE
So let’s see: 2018 is supposed to be a good year for India. We have low inflation, the monsoon may be normal, manufacturing is finally…
Jaat Kahan Ho
It is Useful to remind ourselves about how infinitesimal we are in the cosmic order. As we methodically destroy our planet, it is unlikely we…
Waterless World
Time was when ‘Glacial Speed’ used to mean ‘very, very slowly’. That has changed forever. We know that our planet is warming. New research shows…