On the Tharoor controversy.
In response to the earlier blogpost on the controversy surrounding Mr. Shashi Tharoor’s ‘interlocutor’ statement in Riyadh, Ms. Suhasini Haider, Dy. Foreign Editor [CNN-IBN] replies.
Dear Pragmatic,
Permit me to suggest that you may be guilty of precisely the kind of ‘callousness and disdain’ you accuse me of in your article “A Manufactured Controversy”, [...]
On the diabolical role of certain sections of electronic media in the latest Tharoor controversy.
Another public statement by Shashi Tharoor and another controversy. So what’s new with that? It is easy to dismiss that off with a shrug and get back to watching that heady cocktail of Bollywood, cricketers [its not about the sport any [...]
Why India’s offer of bilateral talks with Pakistan is a really bad idea?
The Acorn is known to choose his words carefully. So when he sets out to welcome the impending Indo-Pak talks, albeit cautiously and with a big caveat in tow, one has to sit up and take notice. His only rationale for welcoming the [...]
Islamist foreign fighters didn’t start the jehad in Kashmir. They came to support and fight the jehad in Kashmir.
Mint has been and remains this blogger’s favourite newspaper. But when the wonderful editorial team at that newspaper errs in its assessment, the discrepancies have to be pointed out. On the twentieth anniversary of the mass [...]
One quote from the Indian Foreign Secretary says it all.
Political power flows from the barrel of a gun.~Mao
Here is Nirupama Rao’s answer to the sudden surge in media pieces asking India to resume talks with Pakistan.
Karan Thapar: What about the opinion expressed by some analysts that if India were to resume the dialogue process, it [...]
Leave alone the video or the audio file, even the transcript of army chief’s annual press conference is not available at any government website.
If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.~Groucho Marx
General Deepak Kapoor, Indian Army Chief held the traditional press conference on the eve of the [...]
Varying reactions — balanced, confused and ridiculous — from ex-military officers to the army corruption debacle.
The action initiated by the army chief against the four generals, who were indicted by the Court of Inquiry in the Sukhna land scam, was unsurprising and on predictable lines. Incessant media spotlight on the troubling issue has elicited a [...]
More than the television coverage of the Srinagar terror attack, it is the editorial opinion surrounding it that is objectionable.
Terrorits stage a bloody comeback in J&K after partial withdrawl of army from the velley. fidyeens kill policeman.
So tweeted Prabhu Chawla [Twitter is a great excuse for bad spellings] in the evening when the terrorists had [...]
Why do terror incidents in India that are counted refer only to Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorist attacks in major urban centres outside Jammu & Kashmir?
An error is simply a failure to adjust immediately from a preconception to an actuality.~John Cage
At the turn of the year, Ajai Sahni critically examines the hugely publicised statement — “no terror [...]
Some essential readings on the first anniversary of Mumbai terror attacks.
Amidst the plethora of articles, blogposts, columns and news-items written in the print and the electronic media on the first anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks, here is my selection of eminently read-worthy material from the lot.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express and Nitin [...]
The Army Chief labels Maoists’ a “socio-economic class struggle”.
During an event at the Pune University, the Army Chief explained his reservations about employing the army against the Left Wing Extremists in this manner.
The disruptive activities and spread of Naxalites in around 14 states poses a major security challenge. The government has adopted a multi-dimensional and [...]
The problem of corruption at higher ranks in the defence services can only be tackled by systemic reform.
Law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power. ~Robert Jackson
Indian Express has a news story highlighting corruption cases at the top echelons [...]
Better governance, not violence by Maoists, is an answer to a lack of governance.
Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.~Mao
Here is a list of phrases often used in the discussion about the Maoists and the Indian government’s response to them by all leftist, bleeding liberal hearts: development, tribal rights, forests, mining [...]
Not in opposing Operation Green Hunt, but in ensuring that the government completes its strategy by undertaking development.
From berating popular media anchors for parroting the government line and comparing Home Ministry’s plans to seize the security initiative against the Maoists to George Bush led US military operations against Iraq, Mukul Kesavan covers a lot of [...]
What is their role? What is holding them back from achieving their potential?
MoS for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor — currently in the media spotlight due to a needless tweeting controversy — is doing something of great significance in his ministry. If this Times of India report is something to go by — and Tharoor has [...]
Transcripts of statements made by generals should be placed on government websites to obviate confusion & misreporting.
The Army Chief today made some remarks about infiltration across the Line of Control being facilitated by Pakistan , and the increased nuclear capability of Pakistan. India Today website reports it as:
Indian Army Chief General Deepak Kapoor on Friday [...]
The top brass got away scot-free. Where are the answers?
As matters stand now, a private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war.~LTC Paul Yingling
The indefatigable Praveen Swami, one of the few journalists to be well-versed with Indian defence matters, has asked that uncomfortable question again. Why was [...]
Putting the latest round of protests in context.
The protests over bodies of two women found in Shopian has caught the state government of J&K in a bind. As witnessed last year during the Amarnath protests, the separatists have again used an emotive issue to further their own interests — to show that they are still [...]
By supporting the BJP in general elections.
Now that election results are here, it would be clear to most people that the unequivocal call by an ex-servicemen organisation asking the military veterans to vote for the BJP was grossly misplaced. The reasons are simple.
Firstly, it placed the ex-servicemen organisation in an enviable position of having opposed [...]
That is what Pak media believes.
Close on the heels of the proverbial storm raised by Pakistani newspaper The News publishing an open letter from a retired Indian Colonel to the Pakistan army chief, here comes the latest instalment of unbridled imagination from the Pakistani newspaper The Dawn.
Displaying hooliganism and rascality to disrupt a seminar on [...]
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