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The most pessimistic of India watchers would grant that things are no longer the same in this benighted country. Given to despairing over a spluttering economic growth, policy paralysis, rampant corruption, rising social tensions and a polarized polity, they are pleasantly surprised to find that the long suffering Indian people have served notice that they would not allow political parties to treat them as mere vote banks to be visited at election time and ignored until the next election. They w...

?The judgment of the Supreme Court in the PIL filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation and Common Cause to challenge the appointment of Mr. P.J. Thomas as the Central Vigilance Commissioner has done much to reinforce the faith of the people of India in the wisdom and objectivity of the Apex Court and, above all, its capacity for creative interpretation of the bald text of a statute, infusing it with the principles of equity, natural justice and good governance. While setting aside t...

The expression "Coalition Dharma", which was coined by the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has rapidly gained currency in political discourse. It is a convenient expression that can conjure illusions of sanctity to cloak the unprincipled compromises and accommodations willingly made by leaders of coalition governments desperate to hang on to power and its perquisites. No wonder that invocations to Coalition Dharma are being heard with great regularity in the context of the...

We can justly take pride in the fact that India has remained a democracy during all the sixty six years of her existence as an independent nation, Indira Gandhi's brief flirtation with authoritarianism during the Emergency notwithstanding. Not many of the new democracies in the world can boast of such a consistent track record. As for the countries in our immediate neighbourhood, the less said, the better. However, it will have to be admitted that there have been, and continue to be, seri...

MEASURE ECONOMIC WELL-BEING *B P Mathur We have for over a century been dragged by the prosperous West behind its chariot, choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness, and overwhelmed by the speed. We agreed to acknowledge that this chariot-drive was progress, and the progress was civilization. If we ever ventured to ask, `progress towards what, and progress for whom', it was considered to be peculiarly and ridiculously oriental to entertain such ideas a...

Wife: There's trouble with the car. It has water in the carburettor. Husband: Water in the carburetor? That's ridiculous. Wife: I tell you the car has water in the carburettor. Husband: You don't even know what a carburettor is. Where's the car? Wife: In the swimming pool. •••••••••• `How's the work going,' Grandfather asked. `Fine,' was the reply. `And the social life?' `I get lot...

We can justly take pride in the fact that India has remained a democracy during all the sixty six years of her existence as an independent nation, Indira Gandhi's brief flirtation with authoritarianism during the Emergency notwithstanding. Not many of the new democracies in the world can boast of such a consistent track record. As for the countries in our immediate neighbourhood, the less said, the better. However, it will have to be admitted that there have been, and continue to be, seri...

We, the people of India, are not very exacting. By temperament and tradition, we do not expect much of our rulers and are quite happy to be left alone. Centuries of feudalism and exctractive foreign rule have instilled in us a high level of tolerance for high-handedness on the part of the ruling class. Nevertheless, we do expect our rulers to discharge the sovereign functions of defence of the country, administration of justice, maintenance of law and order, disaster management and relief. Si...

We, the people of India, are not very exacting. By temperament and tradition, we do not expect much of our rulers and are quite happy to be left alone. Centuries of feudalism and exctractive foreign rule have instilled in us a high level of tolerance for high-handedness on the part of the ruling class. Nevertheless, we do expect our rulers to discharge the sovereign functions of defence of the country, administration of justice, maintenance of law and order, disaster management and relief. Si...

India is in mourning. One of her daughters, a promising 23-year old physiotherapy student, was the victim of a brutal gang rape in South Delhi in the night of December 16, 2012 and succumbed to her injuries two weeks later. She was aptly named Nirbhaya –the fearless- by the media in view of her valiant resistance to the crazed perverts who had assaulted her and the indomitable spirit shown by her in the face of death. The incident aroused the national conscience like no other crime in the ...