The Constitution will survive another 600 years The first draft of India’s Constitution was prepared by the Constituent Assembly sixty years ago. As India heads into the second decade of the 21st Century, globalisation, the spread of terrorism, rapid economic growth and the winners and losers it has produced, and the individual’s liberty pose the…
Can you imagine Pope Francis being named the president of Brazil, which has the world’s largest Roman Catholic population (and the same number of people as Uttar Pradesh)? That is not going to happen, because the ‘Western’ way of thinking says there ought to be a separation of the temporal and the spiritual, the church…
Brushing up on some history, I read about how powerful dynasties in the 8th and 9th centuries fought themselves into exhaustion over the kingdom of Kannauj in north India, oblivious to the first Arab invaders who conquered Sindh in 712CE. Today, the prize of Uttar Pradesh is being fought over by three modern armies: Prime…
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,…
Reuters News 5 September 1997 English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Sept 6 (Reuters) – An Indian bureaucrat who wrote two biographies of Mother Teresa remembers her as a woman with a mischievous sense of humour who wielded formidable administrative skill to control her worldwide organisation. “It was a very special morning,” Navin Chawla…