India already has more than 100 fission weapons, each enough to kill up to two million people. This is deterrence enough, says Praful Bidwai.
The danger of a corporate capture of government isn't imaginary, and corporations represent narrow profit-seeking interests of businessmen whose forte is not Constitutional values, says Praful Bidwai.
'India has so far spent Rs 30,000 crores on the ATV, with virtually no side benefits. This equals the entire budget of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act last year, which generated 45 million person days of employment.'
The criticism of the Indo-Pakistan joint statement is largely misdirected and based on the misperception that the composite dialogue has already been resumed and will continue full tilt no matter what Pakistan does. In fact what Dr Singh and Gilani agreed to was much more limited and laced with caution.
The world public must applaud the people of Pakistan for fighting authoritarianism and taking a major step towards real democratisation through an independent judiciary.
India is not evolving towards a bipolar polity, but towards a complex multipolar system, in which regional and caste-based parties are indispensable to government formation at the Centre. The Left may shrink in size but will have a place of its own, which cannot be ignored.
The only sensible alternative is a regional approach to isolate the jihadis who menace all of South Asia. For this to materialise, the Pakistani State must summon up the will to crack down on and prosecute groups like LeT and their domestic and Afghan collaborators, says Praful Bidwai
The way things are going, India may have a no-limits free-for-all political contest rather than a three-horse race. Parties are approaching one another across the dividing lines of alliances, breaching conventional rules of the political game.
'Already, the Taliban's malign influence is spreading unstoppably into society, and into the army and other vital organs of the State.'
'Our corporate nabobs often milk their companies by appointing procurement and distribution agents, by under- and over-invoicing imports/exports, evading taxes, indulging in insider trading, and dressing up balance-sheets. Satyam fits this pattern, which is widely prevalent in most brick-and-mortar companies.'
'Regrettably, the UPA government seems to be caving in to pressures from the BJP to adopt a macho, national-chauvinist, to-hell-with-civil-liberties stance to show that it has the will to fight terrorism.'
India can positively engage Obama by seeking his cooperation in an initiative for a reform of the global governance system.This means moving away from parochial, short-term preoccupations and thinking big. Can our policymakers muster the will to do this?
All this makes nonsense of the idea of India's professed "credible minimum deterrent", which is understood as a few dozen weapons. (After all, how many bombs does it take to flatten five Chinese or Pakistani cities? 15, 20, 50?) India already has an estimated 100 to 150 nuclear weapons. Adding to the stockpile can only encourage a vicious nuclear arms race with Pakistan and, more ominously, with China, further destabilising already volatile South Asia
If the UPA government signs the nuclear deal with onerous conditions, its credibility will be undermined. If the deal collapses, the UPA stands to become the nation's laughing stock.
The people of Pakistan are in a dark, foreboding mood.According to an International Republican Institute opinion poll, as many as 86 percent of Pakistanis believe their country is headed in the wrong direction.
'The Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance will shift the centre of gravity of Indian politics to the right, with harmful consequences for the mass of the population which has a stake in Left-of-Centre policies. This shift can only facilitate the rise of the already buoyed-up BJP, and could prove a big setback for secularism.'
'The most nauseating part of the book pertains to the Gujarat riots. Advani rejects the settled truth that the post-Godhra violence was State-sponsored.'
The United Progressive Alliance's last full Budget was to be "people-friendly" and correct these distortions. It has comprehensively failed to do so. Indeed, it continues with the neo-liberal policy orientation and will create more problems than it solves.
A BJP defeat in Gujarat will deliver the party a seismic political and organisational shock and mark a historic setback for the entire Sangh Parivar.
Burma isn't just another country. It's India's land bridge to Southeast Asia. Nothing has exposed the grave failure of India's recent policy towards its neighbours as its support for Burma's military dictatorship.
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