Today’s Ghaziabad Municipal corporation has much in common with the seventeenth century ancien régime in France.
In a piece in Foreign Affairs [subscription required], Sheri Berman wants the policymakers to look to Louis XIV and the development of France’s ancien régime for guidance while undertaking state-building in Afghanistan.
During the second half of the seventeenth century, accordingly, [...]
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 [...]
The biggest service that Mr. Antony can do to national security is resign as the defence minister.
Congress MP and spokesperson, Manish Tewari’s recent piece suggesting that the defence ministry has not done enough to strengthen national security — though written in his personal capacity — has suddenly put the defence minister, AK Antony in the [...]
First, organised stone pelting and now, outsourced terror strikes.
Stone pelting by protesters during demonstrations is not a new thing. Over the past decades, our drawing rooms have been satiated with images beamed from all over the world — places in Europe, South East Asia, West Asia and South America easily come to the mind — [...]
Draft Model Police Act of 2006, a part of police reforms, provided for Special Security Zones to overcome the differences between states on conducting security operations against Maoists.
Maoists are back in news again. Two dastardly attacks, one kidnapping, one Chief Minister publicly capitulating before the Maoists, another Chief Minister who publicly opposes any use of [...]
Two initiatives of the home ministry — monthly report card & updated Action plan — are exemplars for other ministries to emulate.
P Chidambaram has done a lot of good things since taking over as the Home Minister of this country in the aftermath of the ghastly terror attack on Mumbai in November 2008. He has [...]
Let us stop this jamboree of a Republic Day Parade.
Even if there is no fog on this 26th January, Delhi will still come to a standstill. Blame it on the Republic Day celebrations. As this news report suggests, the state seems to be taking a kind of perverse pride in converting the national capital [...]
Omar Abdullah has to focus on a long-term plan to revive state capacity in J&K, rather than be dependent on the Centre for administering development schemes in his state.
While the outlays of the state of Jammu & Kashmir — most of it as dole by the Centre — receive a lot of publicity, the poor [...]
An alternate model of development and national integration should be propagated by National Conference to replace this outdated and non-existent political slogan.
History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.~EL Doctorow
Kashmiriyat. The right-wing Hindu intelligentsia has dismissed it as [...]
PM’s Fifth Working Group report on Kashmir’s relations with centre serves some purpose in the mêlée that is Kashmir.
The Prime Minister’s Fifth Working Group on Kashmir, dealing with centre-state relationship, headed by former Supreme Court judge S Saghir Ahmad has submitted its report to the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir. This working group [...]
P Chidambaram must now walk the talk, and execute K Subrahmanyam’s vision of creating a ministry of internal security.
Although the complete text of 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture on A New Architecture of India’s Security by P Chidambaram should be mandatory reading for all students of internal (and national) security, here is an [...]
Nearly eight years after it was first proposed, the defence ministry has not yet embraced this very sensible idea.
For the uninitiated, here is a primer to understand the concept of Zero-based budgeting. United States implemented it in 1977, the Chinese claim to have done so in 2004. In fact, there have been renewed calls in [...]
National Conference has lost an opportunity by failing to politically mobilise its cadres to protest the murder of a 21-year old girl by terrorists in Shopian.
The alleged rape of two women in Shopian earlier this year has been in the spotlight for too long now. Even after the CBI has reported its findings disproving the [...]
High voting percentages in Jharkhand assembly polls, despite the state being a Maoist stronghold, raises uncomfortable questions.
The relatively high voter turnout figures in the ongoing Jharkhand assembly elections should have attracted far more attention that they have done so far. With nearly 80 percent of assembly constituencies declared as Maoist-affected by the Centre, the first [...]
Five questions.
1. Why has a comprehensive study of the societal, political and economic impact of smaller states not been undertaken so many decades after the creation of smaller states?
2. What is holding the government back from announcing the formation of a new State Reorganisation Commission with eminent personalities on board?
3. Should a new state not [...]
The attempt at Senior Hurriyat leader Fazal Haq Qureshi’s life is an effort to scare the moderate separatists away from peace talks.
This is not the first moderate leader targeted by Pakistan-backed Kashmiri militants. The first such incident since the rise of militancy was the assassination of current Mir Waiz’s father, Maulvi Mohammad Farooq by the [...]
Omar Abdullah’s interview stresses the issues highlighted earlier.
Reading Omar Abdullah’s interview with Karan Thapar on The Devil’s Advocate reaffirms all the points raised in this blogpost last week. National Conference [NC] and People’s Democratic Party [PDP] don’t see eye to eye as they pander to different constituencies in Kashmir. If one observes closely, it is [...]
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 [...]
Making sense of the internal contradictions of separatist politics undermining prospective peace talks in Kashmir.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is trying to reassert a role for himself in the peace process, which he believes is rightfully, and solely his in Kashmir. The statements by and the stance of Mirwaiz since his return from the US — and [...]
This is actually not merely about a cricket match between two lowly placed teams in the Plate division of the Ranji Trophy. It is much more than it, with all the political implications and messages that such an event in Srinagar conveys. The foremost among them is to shatter all the claims of the state government about a return of normalcy to the state.
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