Passionate About India

Hillary Clinton just two days back said that the Iraq war can’t be won. I really hope you didn’t get carried away reading it and started taking her seriously! She is still a first generation dynastic hopeful with her husband having no war experience. George Bush on the other hand is a seasoned second generation warring cowboy!! And trust you me he knows the game better than you can imagine. Let me explain you how the smoke ‘em out cowboy has actually won the war on Iraq... well at least as far as his schemes were concerned!! It has been exactly five years since the time President George Bush went on a rampage on Iraq, hunting for those world threatening WMDs!! In these five years the world is testimony to the fact that the US could neither find any WMDs, nor could their intelligence establish any links between the Late Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida, but in effect, on account of the ongoing American engagement, Iraq got completely devastated. Over 1.1 million Iraqis have been killed, some...

These are questions which must be top-of-the-mind for anyone who is even slightly politically conscious or committed. For merit or otherwise, the leadership of the largest serving party of independent India is being thrust upon this man. The big question is – will he be able to deliver ever? For, given the way the Indian political scenario is taking shape – with regional parties replacing national parties at the state level – if Rahul fails to deliver, it might take the party a few decades more to regroup and regain its position. In the framework of this context, it was indeed heartening to read Rahul’s latest views on reviving the Congress party. For the first time, someone could openly say that the party lacks inner party democracy and that the high-command system must give way – issues all Congress supporters and detractors have always been critical about. Probably thanks to his status of being the son of the dynasty, Rahul could say what everyone has always felt, but never dared to...

No doubt, year after year the Union Budget ritual is a big let down. But then, this year’s Budget has surpassed all such milestones created by previous Budgets in letting down the masses of this country. It was amazing to watch how casually and callously our honourable Finance Minister (FM) kept on doling out favours after favours, with the least respect for a citizen’s money. It was also amazing to note how our sitting MPs, dead drunk in ‘populism’, kept on vehemently applauding each and every illogical and irrational announcement made by the FM. The final icing came towards the end of his speech, when mainstream media, industrial associations and industrial big wigs shamelessly sang in unison in appreciation for the FM, without getting into the details of the actual impending effects of some of the reckless decisions taken by him, in his Budget speech. Let’s start with our Honourable FM’s biggest kill in this year’s Budget – Waiving of a staggering Rs 60,000 crores worth of loans of ...

Knowing that HIV/AIDS is a global concern, wherein governments, multi-lateral institutions and NGOs across the world are leaving no stone unturned to arrest the epidemic, it is appalling that in our country the association of people living in HIV/AIDS have to literally plead with our government to table the HIV Bill. The Bill which has been drafted by Lawyers’ Collective HIV/AIDS Unit, with an objective of safeguarding the interests of people living with HIV/AIDS and also to prevent and control the epidemic, had been approved by the Ministry of Health and was forwarded to the Ministry of Law in August 2006! Since then it has been languishing with the Law Ministry, waiting to be tabled and for a go-ahead from our honourable parliamentarians! Forget taking any cue from the proactive measures which governments across the world have been taking, it is literally shocking that even after knowing that this Bill affects the basic survival of a staggering 2.5 to 3 million people, who are living...

Sometime back, in one of my editorials, I had written that in the forthcoming Parliamentary elections, the formation of a third front is quite a possibility, given the current state of political affairs in the country. In fact, the very idea of a third front was put forward when the CPI(M) General Secretary, Prakash Karat announced he was working towards it. Though there is no doubt that both the big national parties – Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – cannot form a government on their own, as it has been quite evident over the past few years, for both these parties have seen a sustained erosion of their national appeal and those are the regional parties which have been eating into their share of the pie! The erosion has been so severe that in some states, some regional parties have literally overgrown to challenge the erstwhile supremacy of the big two. In fact, of all the regional parties, it is Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which has done the maximum damage for them...