Deccan Chronicle - DC Comment

Pawar politics in Maha game

publisher2@dc.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The Nationalist Congress Party chief and Union agriculture minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, looks like he is not averse to engaging in untidy politics. In the weeks preceding the Lok Sabha election last May when the term of the first UPA government — in which the NCP was an alliance partner, just as now — was coming to a close, Mr Pawar began to openly hobnob with third front elements who were fanta

Arms and the woman

publisher2@dc.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The impact of a fleeting cameo moment on Republic Day 2010 momentarily highlighted to a nationwide audience the ceaseless human cost paid by the Indian Army for building and preserving the republic. Posthumous gallantry awards carry a special impact of their own, especially when the next of kin receiving the award is herself a soldier like Maj. Rishma Sarin as she stepped forward and rigidly salut

US not yet lost, but Senate doing its best

publisher2@dc.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.
What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralysed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall o

Price rise: A new panel, as usual

publisher1@dc.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The eight-hour meeting of Chief Ministers convened by the Prime Minister on Saturday ended, predictably, with the formation of a committee to tackle the problem. It appears to be a hallmark of this government — when pushed into a corner, form a committee, or an empowered group of ministers, or just a group of ministers. Food prices have been going up for nearly eight months, yet this government

Who’s afraid of probe?

publisher1@dc.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The Congress general secretary, Mr Digvijay Singh, should be complimented for publicly expressing doubts about the Batla House encounter and the inquiry into it by the Human Rights Commission. The Batla House encounter took place in New Delhi in September 2008, in which the Delhi police killed two suspected Indian Mujahideen militants and also lost one of its ace inspectors.

There is widesprea

Yemen is not Afghanistan, it can fix itself

publisher1@dc.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

Sana, Yemen

Yemen’s former Prime Minister, Mr Abdul Karim al-Iryani, got right to the point when I arrived at his Sana home for dinner: “So, Thomas, did it take Abdulmutallab to finally get you here?” Yes, it is true, I admitted, because that young Nigerian, trained in Yemen by Al Qaeda, tried to blow up a Northwest jetliner on Christmas Day, I decided I had to see Yemen firsthand. I furt

Stand up to chauvinist politics

publisher1@dc.com — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The Congress leader, Mr Rahul Gandhi, appears to have made quite an impression in Mumbai on Friday as he politically challenged the Maharashtra chauvinists in their own den. For the moment this has put the Shiv Sena on the back foot. They had been using vile language against Mr Gandhi and his family for asserting the broad proposition in Patna and Puducherry that all parts of India were for all In

Evolution of coalitions

publisher1@dc.com — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

Bihar is gearing up for a dramatic political battle and we already see the ruling Janata Dal-United coming under pressure. There’s a rebellion in the offing that is allegedly fueled by the Chief Minister, Mr Nitish Kumar’s alleged high-handed behaviour which his his senior party colleagues resent. The caste dissensions within the party could add another twist to this affair and lead to a virtu

Climate change hoax on a sinking island

publisher1@dc.com — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

You couldn’t hope for a more perfect climate change victim than Ajay Patra, the head man of Ghoramara — the island in India’s Sunderban chain that is next in line to be submerged beneath the rising sea. The hungry tide has already claimed all but seven of the 100 hectares his family had once owned, Ajay told me. Each year, he directs his villagers to pile felled trees onto the mud, in the de

Talk to Pak, but with no illusions

publisher1@dc.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

When to talk to Pakistan, and the conversation menu, have been problematic in recent years. The issue is once again with us. It has never been the case that India has shied away from discussing Kashmir with Islamabad, as Pakistan frequently asserts. After the 1971 war, it was New Delhi that took the initiative for the Shimla talks and Kashmir had an important place in that discussion.

The ganja hypocrisy

publisher1@dc.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

“Examine the lives of those who tell us how to live,
Survey the desert for flowers…”
From Bachchoo Agonistes

‘FINE’ TRAFFIC COPS

publisher1@dc.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The city traffic police has suddenly become hyperactive. Armed with challan books, they are fining traffic violators as if there is no tomorrow. The worst hit are motorists with Telangana number plates. They are crucified for no fault of theirs. Many vehicles in the city with AP registrations were forcibly painted ‘TG’ when the agitation for a separate state was at its peak. The cops dared not

Don’t delay petrol’s decontrol any longer

publisher2@dc.com — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The Kirit Parikh Committee’s recommendation to deregulate fuel prices, and in particular raise cooking gas and kerosene prices in tandem with the rise in GDP, is more or less on expected lines. But this is not just about the immediate rise of Rs 3/litre for petrol and diesel, Rs 6/litre for kerosene or Rs 100/kg for LPG, but a policy change — one that the government will need considerable poli

A game of fear

publisher2@dc.com — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

“Sena thesis pernicious... all Indians are free to live and work in Mumbai”, says the Union home minister, Mr Palaniappan Chidambaram. This was the headline in most newspapers on Tuesday. We cannot, however, ignore the fact that Mr Chidambaram’s denunciation of the Shiv Sena-Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) campaign against non-Marathis in Mumbai comes only after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak

A lesson for Pakistan from A.K. Antony

publisher2@dc.com — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

Three lieutenant-generals of the Indian Army are to be tried by court martial for their part in an alleged land scam. The orders to try them were passed by the defence minister, Mr A.K. Antony, when he saw that the Army Chief was trying to whitewash the alleged crime of one of the accused, just two days before Lt. Gen. Avdesh Prasad went into retirement.
Mr Prasad was military secretary at the Ar

Will post-Amar SP turn more socialist?

publisher1@dc.com — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The meandering political farce of the past few weeks has culminated with the expulsion of Mr Amar Singh from the Samajwadi Party. Along with him has been sent packing Ms Jayaprada, the Telugu film actress who sought her political fortunes in Uttar Pradesh with Mr Singh’s help and is a member of the Lok Sabha.

A war of nuances

publisher1@dc.com — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The recently held London Conference underlined the problems that continue to bedevil international efforts in Afghanistan. In particular, it exposed the gaps between the incentives and desires of various actors. A principal aim of the conference was to convince domestic audiences in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) countries that there was light at the end of the tunnel: the coalition for

The 2010 fix-it list: China, banks, Iran

publisher1@dc.com — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

Doha, Qatar

One of the few pleasant surprises of 2009 was that the world’s biggest economies were able to concentrate on healing themselves without any major wars or world-shaking political or geopolitical disruptions. What are the odds that 2010 will be so benign? I’d say quite low. No question, the world’s major economies badly need 2010 to be another quiet year politically and geopolit

A return to growth? Don’t celebrate yet

publisher1@dc.com — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The euphoria over economic growth that started with the November 2009 industrial production figures has carried over into the first month of the new year. It was fortified last week by the Reserve Bank, which raised GDP growth projection for 2009-10 to 7.5 per cent from the earlier October credit policy figure of six per cent.

Constricting coalitions

publisher1@dc.com — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

THE way the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government Mark II has functioned since its inspiring victory in the Lok Sabha elections over eight months ago is most disappointing.

Obama: Caught between his gut and D.C.

publisher1@dc.com — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

I had very high hopes for the US President, Mr Barack Obama. I still do. He’s smart, curious, informed — and he has a sense of humour, if only he’d display it more. But he inherited a nation in a funk and, one year into his presidency, he’s not found a way to lift the mood. Americans feel mired.

At a fundamental level, that funk is about a power shift. The United States is not what it w

Sena-BJP squabble: Both are in a mess

publisher1@dc.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

The Shiv Sena and the BJP, allies for close on three decades, find themselves in a position of likely public confrontation over an issue that is of deep political concern to both. The two parties have faced difficulties before on matters such as distribution of seats before an election. This is common enough between allies. But the partners had never before come to the possibility of a public spat

Reimagining Pak

publisher1@dc.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

India-Pakistan relations have been in suspended animation since the fracas after the Sharm el-Sheikh statement, which was an unsuccessful attempt to restart the dialogue process without having obtained from Pakistan any guarantee that there would be no repeat of the 26/11 outrage. Previously the setting up of the anti-terror mechanism had facilitated re-engagement after the July 2006 train bombing

Banking lessons from Canada: Boring is safe

publisher1@dc.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

In times of crisis, good news is no news. Iceland’s meltdown made headlines; the remarkable stability of Canada’s banks, not so much.

Yet as the world’s attention shifts from financial rescue to financial reform, the quiet success stories deserve at least as much attention as the spectacular failures. We need to learn from those countries that evidently did it right. And leading that list

Reddy wins hearts, Tharoor heals

publisher1@dc.com — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0530

Worse in verse
What happens when a businessman starts penning poetry? What pours forth are not lines about rivers and moonlight but verses on statistics, trade and, of course, dollars. Sample a poem written by Assocham president Swati Piramal in honour of the visiting Malaysian Prime Minister:
“Today...
In Malaysian real estate, rubber, railways and IT
You can see an Indian touch