Passionate About India

I recently came across an intriguing research, conducted by a Washington based research group. The research analysed the news reports for the month of April and found out that the American Presidential campaign has taken up almost 33% of the editorial space, followed by general economy which took almost 6%. The Pope’s visit and the Texas polygamy case equally shared an editorial space of 4% each. It is intriguing that as bodies of innocent American soldiers and that of equally innocent Iraqi’s kept falling, it could garner only 3% of editorial space!! It is not to draw any conclusion whether the American Presidential campaign is more important than Iraq, but then the media coverage in itself indicates that though Iraq is a burning global issue, the American media doesn’t feel likewise, otherwise it would not have given a mere 3% space. And the bigger issue here is that by reducing media space over a period of time, the American media is systematically trying to take Iraq out of people’...

As if the slaughter of around 1000 innocent villagers (since 2005) – who were handed guns in the year 2005 under the people’s vigilante movement called ‘Salwa Judum’ – was not enough, now other states like Manipur are also replicating the same. It is nothing less than outrageous that just like when the Chhattisgarh government had decided to hand over guns to innocent villagers, to ostensibly fend for themselves against the onslaught of militant Naxalites, the Manipur government too has decided to move in the same direction. It is reported that the state government has taken a decision to arm some 500 villagers with .303 rifles (300 at Heirok in Toubal and 200 at Lilong Chajing) and form a similar people’s vigilante group against the Naxals. It has also been reported that once trained, each one of these villagers would be paid a sum of Rs 3,000 per month!! This decision is no less than shocking, as instead of scrapping the entire Salwa Judum movement, various other state governments are...

It seems that the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is all set to gift away a comfortable victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies in the forthcoming Union elections, with the latter doing nothing much to earn it. Looking at the way things are happening, it is as if history is repeating itself. It was not very long ago that onions had taken away the sheen of whatever good work that the then National Democratic Alliance had done. The electorate had then ruthlessly stripped them of their power, showcasing the crude fact that the Indian electorate posses extremely short memories, particularly when it comes to elections. And this time, none else is realising it more than the ruling UPA. They realise that gone is the euphoria they created by gifting the huge Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver for farmers in this year’s annual budget, and that too barely two months ago. And gone along with it is the positive sentiment that was created by the increase in the non-taxable income fr...

I write this editorial in context of the ongoing food and financial crisis that the world is reeling under and coupled with other reasons how the United States had been instrumental in creating this global catastrophe. It all started in March of 2003, when President George Bush’s Administration decided to engage Iraq, to capture those ‘WMDs’ which the Late Saddam Hussain possessed. At that time oil prices were hovering around USD 25-30 per barrel and everything seemed to be in order as far as the economics of energy was concerned. And then Iraq happened, and with it changed the global oil economics forever. Till date, Iraq has cost the US upwards of USD 2 trillion but worse than that has been the effect that Iraq engagement had on the global oil prices, throwing everything off balance. Five years since Iraq (the second largest oil supplier in the world) went into war, and as a result all supplies got disrupted from there, oil now trades at USD 100 per barrel!! And this cataclysmic rise...