Inter-State Council
ONE would normally welcome reports that the government of India is proposing to convene the Inter-State Council. But, for two good reasons, scepticism is in order. First, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not one to concede the states’ demands for greater respect for their autonomy. He is a centralist. The RSS, to which the prime […]
Ceasefire, no talks
Pakistan resides in the hearts and minds of most Kashmiris.
A.G. Noorani COULD the directors-general of military operations of India and Pakistan have agreed “to fully implement the ceasefire understanding of 2003” in Kashmir in a short phone conversation on May 29, unless it had already been agreed at the highest political level? Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has been urging a reluctant centre to order […]
Governor’s role
The grossness of today belongs to the BJP’s governors.
ON Aug 5, 1983, the chief minister of Karnataka Ramakrishna Hegde inaugurated a seminar on centre-state relations at Bangalore at which he fired the first salvo in a campaign which he continued to wage for his next five years in office. He said: “Even the governor has become a glorified servant of the union. An […]
Of summitry
What are summits worth in modern times?
SUMMITRY is in vogue these days. North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s meeting with President Moon Jae-in on April 27 has been the most promising in the series. The two-day meeting at Wuhan between President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not a summit that marked a decisive turn in the relations […]
The prosecutor
Criminal justice depends on the integrity of three institutions.
THE prosecutor has been under a cloud for a long time; of late that cloud over his office has darkened. On April 20, Maya Kodnani, a minister in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat government, was acquitted in the Naroda Patiya case in the 2002 pogrom of Muslims. Kodnani became a minister after the riots. In 2012, she […]
Mehbooba’s failure
Can any Kashmiri sink lower than this?
THE recent claim that the reaction in India to the gang rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Jammu and Kashmir could bring India and Kashmir ‘together’ is a measure of the depths to which Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti can sink. At the same time, in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 49 […]
Modi & ‘fake news’
The media needs no committee of babus.
ON April 2, India’s minister for information and broadcasting, Smriti Irani, announced measures to curb ‘fake news’. Based on a complaint of its dissemination, a journalist’s accreditation would be “suspended” pending the Press Council of India’s (PCI) “determination of the news item being fake or not”. The suspension would last six months for the […]
Trump’s NSA pick
Bolton’s appointment is a threat to world peace.
IN appointing John Bolton as his national security adviser, President Donald Trump is sending strong signals to his country and the world. First, in choosing a notorious hawk, he has lain to rest all expectation and hope that power will tame him. Second, he has no interest in securing independent let alone contrary advice […]
A hawkish doctrine
Modi’s NSA doesn’t believe in friendly relations.
STATES have an image of themselves that inspires their policies in the global order. A basic principle that governs their foreign policy emerges. For centuries, Britain adhered to the principle of balance of power in Europe. It required the country to ensure that no power emerged on the continent that was more powerful than all […]
