Vajpayee had always felt that India must act with conviction and panache. He decided that, irrespective of the attendant risks, he would undertake what many felt was a precarious course. A fascinating excerpt from N K Singh's Portraits Of Power: Half A Century Of Being At Ringside on Atalji's 96th birthday, December 25.
In putting the country's economy back on the rails, it is best that Narendra Modi and Arun Jaitley draw on grass-roots feedback and their own practical sense and native wisdom without allowing themselves to be sucked into the quicksand of economic punditry, says B S Raghavan.
One hopes the higher courts take the extraordinary steps needed to secure justice for the victims. The Gujarat carnage demands nothing less because of its unique nature and sponsorship by the State, argues Praful Bidwai.
'Karna is the greatest warrior in the Mahabharata -- in fact, Arjuna is a nobody in front of Karna.' 'But Arjuna had a better advisor in Krishna than Karna.' 'Karna failed because he listened to the wrong advice given by Salya.' 'It just shows wrong advisors can land even the mighty in trouble.'
'The Congress can't return to power unless it reins in prices, lowers interest rates, taxes the rich,' says Praful Bidwai. 'If this means sacking those most responsible for the UPA's pro-big business policies including Finance Minister Chidambaram, so be it!'
Business reacted with caution to the reforms of 1991, and demanded protection from multinationals and imports. Twenty-five years later, traces of that demand can still be found, reports Bhupesh Bhandari.
In its essence, GST is a national level system of value added taxation of goods and services, says Shankar Acharya.
The pipeline for well-qualified and experienced policy economists at senior levels of government has broken, leading to a growing dearth of suitable candidates for top economist positions.
'We are witnessing a spectacle of breathtakingly creative diplomacy at work, riveted on the firm foundations of the country's strategic autonomy,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
