Critique of the Times

The Indian Express, the daily we grew up to revere as the reporter's newspaper, doesn't seem to be so any more. The more you see its reportage on the Tatas, the more it seems to belong to the latter. We ought to have seen it coming when Shekhar Gupta recently walked less and talked more with Ratan Tata. The Tata group is in the thick of the 2G scam, but Gupta came across as one who had decided that they indeed were not and tagged along with Ratan Tata in the NDTV show, Walk the Talk. All through...

Two months back when an all-party delegation visited Kashmir Valley, the buzz was about confidence-building measures (CBMs). Everyone agreed that the Constitution of India provides ample scope to accommodate any legitimate political demand through "dialogue, civil discourse and peaceful negotiations." The fact that protests are not rocking the streets of Srinagar and other towns now, does not mean that public resentment has died down. The Valley hasn't turned greener in the last two months, it...

Dialogue is crucial to democracy. The communication gap between the people of Kashmir and the rest of India created by the Union and Jammu & Kashmir governments along with a pliant India media had long created a situation had created a lopsided situation where the voices of one side were not heard at all. Given this backdrop, Hurriyat (M) chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Executive Council member, Bilal Gani Lone's trip to cities in mainland India was a welcome step. The Mirwaiz's intention was...

On Wednesday, Iraq deposited the 20th instrument of ratification for the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances to the Secretary General of the United Nations. What this meant was that the Convention will enter into force on December 23, 30 days after the 20th accession or ratification. The text was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 20, 2006 and opened for signature on February 6, 2007. So far 87 States have signed, and 20...

There are many casualties of an entertainment-driven media industry. One of those is heritage. News about cultural heritage are usually relegated to news briefs and used as fillers in newspapers. The less said the better about television. So when UNESCO announced earlier this week that three Indian elements were among the 46 inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, it failed to make news. Among major news establishments, it was The Hindu alone which...

The outrage in the Western world over the Sakineh Ashtiani issue increasingly seems like an outrage that is directed more at Iran, than any real concern over human rights. US President Barack Obama, who only the other day, lectured India on human rights, so far has not been able to utter a single world against a similar case in Saudi Arabia, where another young woman is on a death row. Last month, the Supreme Court in Riyadh endorsed the death sentence imposed on Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek...

The Union government, last month, decided to go in for an enumeration of castes other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Caste-wise enumeration had been given up as a matter of policy after Independence. The last census when caste-wise data was collected, tabulated and published in detail was the 1931 census. So why is the self-proclaimed progressive government harking us back to the past? It cannot be denied that the caste system does not exist in modern India. It does, but not in the...

The decision of the University of Mumbai to drop the Booker-nominated novel of Rohinton Mistry Such a Long Journey from its BA syllabus following objections from the Shiv Sena students’ wing sets a dangerous precedent. This not the first time that the rightwing party has managed to armtwist someone into complying with its chauvinistic assertions, but this episode sends out portentous signals in being an exemplar for many things that are not right. On September 14, the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena...

Yemen is now a classic example of how and why a government hemmed in by all sides militarily and economically takes it out on its own people. It ought to be a cause for worry too, for there is more to it here than meets the eye. If you don’t look for it, you won’t see it. Instability caused by internal conflict and religious terrorism, coupled with brazen corruption and merciless repression of freedom of expression make a heady and potent mix. See this in the light of the fact that nearly a...

The debate over the death penalty resurfaces in India every time a judgment on a murder is delivered. There is however very little to the debate, and it is more about mass hysteria with people all around screaming for blood. It is as if this is the only form of salvation. All voices and reasoning against the death penalty is drowned in this shrill, rabid cries for blood. There is, indeed, very little debate over the issue in India. It is not debated hotly in Parliament by representatives most of...