Opinions and Editorials

While the entire nation watches in disgust the deal-making and horse- trading that mark the current turn in our politics, let us not overlook the rather profound questions that got us here.

As the Left Front plays down its differences, Amulya Gopalakrishnan explains the internal workings of the CPM.

A recent poll shows that at least half of the Indian and Pakistani public is ready to accept a solution where Kashmir is part of neither country.

In choosing to stay the course and not resign as Speaker of Lok Sabha as demanded by his party, Somnath Chatterjee may either be emulating the statesmanlike perspective of Edmund Burke or pursuing a deep dialectical plot, being drummed up by the satta bazaar as aimed at securing a gubernatorial position in the near future.

My friend Joe Cummin, a young, beefy Anglo-Indian, was a great race enthusiast and knew every in and out of The Royal Calcutta Turf Club. His father, a celebrated jockey of his time, rode his first winner at the age of 14. Cummin would regale me with interesting tales about the Raj that he had heard from his father.

Recent events such as the unjustifiable incarceration of Binyak Sen in Jharkhand, the Arushi murder case, and denial of bail to children and women protesting state callousness towards the victims of the Bhopal catastrophe show how regimes of police power continue to blight and even annul the letter and spirit of Indian constitutionalism.

The Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy have released the 2008 version of the Failed States Index. 177 countries have been ranked.

The arguments over the Left's decision to oppose the UPA government have focused obsessively on short-term questions.

The international community's selective myopia has come home to roost in Sudan. Nobody in his right senses would characterise Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir as anything other than criminal.

Matters surrounding the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal continue to dominate the pages of Urdu newspapers as, indeed, is the case in other sections of the press.

Much like the UPA government in India, Turkey's AKP (Justice and Development Party) led government is facing a dire battle for survival.

As they took pot-shots at each other on national security on Tuesday, the two American presidential candidates, the Democrat Barack Obama and the Republican John McCain, agreed on one important issue - the urgency of rejuvenating the faltering war against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's a 25 crore rupee question (thank you, A.B. Bardhan) as this goes to print, whether Manmohan Singh or L.K. Advani will claim victory after the July 22 trust vote.

The Taj Mahal's flawless beauty is known for attracting lovebirds from all over the world. For my first date, I had no choice but to make do with Humayun's tomb, for I live in the capital. However, I didn't mind. With a spring in my step and a song in my heart I was there an hour before the appointed time. There was no better way to utilise my time than taking a closer look at the grand monument.

The latest issue of Organiser carried an interview with BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu where he says that if inflation can be contained in Europe, "why can't the UPA government control it in India".

"To scare the monkey", an old Chinese proverb says, "you must kill the chicken". That might be one of the reasons behind the summary execution last week of two Uighur Islamic separatists from the Xinjiang province in the country's far western frontier.

When Herbert Baker designed Parliament House, he paid especially close attention to the design of the speaker's chair.

The contours of the immediate crisis (or hectic political parleying) should become clear whenever the "trust vote" takes place - or at least somewhat.

Narco-analysis is fast becoming the prime investigative tool for the police and CBI in a number of important cases - at a rough estimate, about a dozen narco-analysis tests have been conducted on the various dramatis personae in the Arushi murder case.