LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
DEMOCRACY sometimes teaches strange lessons, and the strangest of them all is currently being acted out in the remote North- eastern state of Assam. Since…
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Letter from the Editor
THERE can be little more excitement for the media than to chronicle political events from inception to climax. Opportunities tend to be rare, but as…
FEELIN’GOOD
IT IS GOOD THAT WE ARE FEELING BUCKED UP AT THE BEGINNING of 2018. Major economies expect growth in tandem for the first time since…
Interview- India’s Sinha wants to go for growth
2 June 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 2 (Reuters) – India’s Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha put up a spirited…
Interview- India targets not just “hope and prayer”
3 June 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, June 3 (Reuters) – India’s fiscal targets for the current year are not…
Nuclear war unlikely over Kashmir, leader says
6 February 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 6 (Reuter) – The leader of India’s Kashmir region said on Thursday…
India relives midnight “tryst with destiny”
14 August 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 15 (Reuter) – India’s leaders gathered in their parliament’s majestic Central Hall…
India celebrates half-century of independence
15 August 1997 08:15 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Aug 15 (Reuter) – India put on a dazzling show of fireworks,…
The Dauphin and the Figurehead
Timing is everything, and with a number of state elections soon, leading to the general election next year, the cynicism and opportunism are manifest. The…
Earthy Tales
Last week I was on a flight to Mumbai About two hours in, the captain an- nounced that there was unseasonal heavy rain ahead and…
Eight Innovations That Delighted Consumers and What India can Learn From Them
I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet, in time, by labour, application, and con- trivance, I found at last that I…
India’s Coolest Start-Ups
Some things were on a fast track as the heat dragged us into the dog days of June, and some were on a slow track.…
Home Truths
And now at the end he found himself in his own house, on his own half-lot of land, his own portion of the earth. That…
REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
Hiteswar Saikia was last Fortnight trying to settle into the hottest seat in India-the chief ministers hip of Assam. The diminutive, balding ‘politician had been…
SPOIL OF SYCOPHANCY
For all those journalists who think they belong to a thankless and poorly-paid profession, there is hope on the horizon. It comes from the latest…
The Burning Of Assam
The fuse has been burning for almost four years and the mood in the state has passed through all the faces of anger, despair and…
A State Ravaged
It was beyond the ken of a civilised society, a blood spattered vindication of a heartless government’s sudden constitutional piety. The carnage began with a…
ENDS OF JUSTICE
Gauhati and Jorhat and small batches people took out processions in protest against the decision to hold the elections. Even political parties opposed to the…
THE TAMIL TRAGEDY
The 35-km ride from Katunayake International Airport into Colombo in a slow Mitsubishi coach I driven by a nervous Sinhala I is enveloped in silence.…
THE AFTERMATH
GANESHA’S temple had never seen so many supplicants, all with unanswerable prayers Colombo’s Tamils call it Pillaiyar Kovil, and its ornamented gateway on Galle Road…
Interview: Anil Agarwal
“Everybody is going to die, but I am going to die last” He started out as a scrap trader in Patna. Today, with a personal…
Panic Button
Reading An Account of the Great Fear, or Grande Peur, that swept across France in July and August of 1789, I was struck by the…
TOO BIG TO FAIL
Independence day is a good excuse for some economic chest-thumping. We should be proud that lndia is a free-enterprise democracy. Imagine the world’s burden if…
Glass Half-Full?
We can hope that in the run-up to the next general election we will not suffer the type of jolts to our nervous systems that…
Identify Yourself
The Fates Of the four million people whose names did not appear in the ‘complete draft’ of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam…
FUTURE TENSE
So let’s see: 2018 is supposed to be a good year for India. We have low inflation, the monsoon may be normal, manufacturing is finally…
The Dog’s tail
There is no loophole that has not met an Indian taxpayer. A Hindi proverb says you can never straighten a dog’s tail (kutte ki poonch…).…
Clutching At Straws
We are so frozen in the headlights of the on rushing slowdown that even a flicker leads us to believe that we have seen friendly…
VULTURE CULTURE
PSYCHOPATHY. VOYEURISM. SADISM. Schadenfreude. Vicarious pleasure. Blood lust. You will find several terms to describe the human tendency to find a strange satisfaction, indeed fulfilment,…