India’s Marxist veteran looks back with pride
CALCUTTA, India, June 15 (Reuter) – The leader of the world’s oldest democratically elected communist government looked back on his 20 years in power and…
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CALCUTTAÂ -THE CITY THAT REFUSES TO DIEÂ Â
Nowhere else in India do people engulf you as they do in Calcutta. From the moment you step off your train or plane, and begin…
Nepal aims at independent central bank
22 May 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited KATHMANDU, May 22 (Reuter) – Nepal’s coalition government plans to grant the Himalayan kingdom’s central…
Nepal PM says government safe — for now
23 May 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited KATHMANDU, May 23 (Reuter) – Nepal’s fragile coalition government is not in any danger despite…
CALCUTTA’S INDIANS TAKE ELECTIONS IN STRIDE
21 November 1989  Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited Calcutta, Nov 21, Reuter – The six Bengalis splashing around a fire hydrant inches from…
26 KILLED ON SECOND DAY OF INDIA’S GENERAL ELECTION
24 November 1989 Reuters News  English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited LUDHIANA, India, Nov 24, Reuter – At least 26 people were killed on Friday on…
India aims to grant autonomy to state-owned media
27 May 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, May 27 (Reuter) – India is determined to grant autonomy to state-controlled television…
I have to follow capitalism: Buddha
IT IS like being thrown about in an ideological cocktail shaker. You get off a gleaming passenger jet and drive over a soaring expressway to…
CALCUTTA IS FOEVER
Thirty years ago, a dishevelled man leaned across and shouted at me in the smoke-filled, raucous Olympia bar on Calcutta’s Park Street: “Calcutta is forever!”…
FAITH, HOPE AND NO CHARITY
The International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) began with a bang: the National Federation of the Blind led its members in a vociferous agitation in…
FRIEND IN NEED
The Rashtriya Swyamsewak Sangh (Rss) is everybody’s favourite bugbear. So perhaps it was inevitable that it would be accused of having a hand in the…
TOILET -TRAINING INDIA
On September 25, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi received the Gates Foundation’s Global Goalkeepers Award in New York for his leadership of the Swachh…
KILLING ME SOFTLY
He took a deep breath of air. Once again he caught a strangeness on the wind, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither odour nor perfume—just strange,…
APOCALYPSE NOW
Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanashi, Gaya, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Agra, Muzaffarpur. Nine of the world’s ten most polluted cities listed by the World Health Organization are in…
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
The other day, I watched this video of four-year-old Jackson Drew reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?) and marvelled…
THE AIR IS THICK
The Good news is that both the Bharatiya Janata Partyand Congress seem to have finally woken upto the looming catastrophe of air pollution in our…