Opinions and Editorials

A neat little row has broken out over a Bhagat Singh statue. Did the great warrior-freedom fighter have 'such' a thick beard? Did he wear a turban? It seems that yet another iconic figure bites the 'proper representation' dust.

For those of us who need a marker from the past, the murder of a woman in a Christian missionary school in Orissa is reminiscent of the murders of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in 1999. Almost a decade apart, the latest act of horror is linked to the Staines case.

On the face of it, the grumbling in the South Block that Nepal's new prime minister, Prachanda, has presented himself in Beijing before travelling to New Delhi may seem trivial.

Barack Obama's once healthy lead in polls has sagged in recent weeks, seemingly the result of a number of converging trends and occurrences.

When K.D. Jadhav won India's last wrestling medal at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 the celebrations at home were extremely muted, restricted to the sports pages of newspapers unlike the megahype now around Sushil Kumar and the new phalanx of Indian boxers.

Land for industry in a country where manufacturing is finally buzzing and where agriculture employs an unsustainably large number of people should be a no-brainer for politicians.

The proposal to create a dozen new so-called world-class universities, in addition to 16 new Central universities, seems, at first sight, to be an important step in expanding quality higher education in India.

British film-director Nicolas Roeg turns 80 this month, an occasion as any to reassess his cinematographic legacy.

Now that you're gone, I'm so lonesome I could cry. It's the end of an affair. Sixteen glory days of the greatest show on earth. Oh Beijing, I hate to see you go. Every morning awoke to new contests, every night ended with relays, sorry, replays. And there was us, like News 24's anchor, dancing around the room, throwing imaginary punches.

• Shekhar Gupta 'One gold, two bronze...' rightly says that Indian sport has begun to climb out of the barrel.

Okay, so we know why Mamata Banerjee is sitting put and shouting loud in Singur. She needs an issue so Ratan Tata and his 'vicious, life-disrupting' Nano project has provided her one. But what's the reason for worthies like Medha Patkar to growl at the Tatas and proclaim, 'We don't need you.

'They are not afraid of death.' Chilling words from a psychiatrist in Kashmir about the younger generation that is taking to the streets these days.

You'll have to excuse me if this column emerges a bit mud-encrusted this week and ever-so-slightly grim. There's a good explanation for this. The first is because I've spent all morning grubbing about the streets looking for stones.And the second is the reason I've been grubbing about at all. I've been affronted.

It is not about Ratan Tata or India's largest auto company, Tata Motors -which is challenging assumptions of costs the world over. The Rs 1,500 crore that the company is ready to forego for employee safety is as generous a promoter as any worker can aspire for. The amount - 9 per cent of the company's market capitalisation - has been taken in stride by the 309,530 shareholders.

The adjournment of the NSG special meeting, which had been called to consider a waiver for India from its stringent export control rules governing international nuclear trade, has caused some gloating among opponents of the Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement, both among the non-proliferation ayatollahs in the US and opposition parties at home.

Recently, Kuldip Nayar, while speaking at a seminar in Amritsar, proposed that the Punjab assemblies of both India and Pakistan pass separate resolutions condemning the barbaric crimes committed during Partition.

The judgment of the Delhi High Court holding senior advocates R.K. Anand and I.U. Khan guilty of criminal contempt has administered a timely shock to the legal fraternity.

The mandarins at the Information and Broadcasting Ministry are a touchy lot. Especially when it comes to anything touchy-feely. It may leave a bitter aftertaste for many of us, but the latest ad the ministry has found distasteful is one for a deodorant that shows a chocolate-covered boy being chased by girls on TV.

Two top Delhi lawyers are given a mild rap on the knuckles by the High Court for what appears to be a serious offence. The two have been barred from appearing before the High Court and subordinate courts for four months and asked to pay a nominal fine for trying to influence a key witness in a sensational hit-and-run case.

Not so long ago, India's economy appeared robust. Overall growth was averaging 9 per cent per annum. Inflation was still in single digits. Business journalists were smiling. Although the world was experiencing a financial crisis due to the sub-prime mess in the United States, there was a sense that we were relatively insulated from all those bad things happening outside.