CALCUTTA -THE CITY THAT REFUSES TO DIE
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…
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Frozen in the Headlights
Poor Manmohan Singh is caught between the Pros and the Cons. The Pros in the Opposition are telling the prime minister, who has never seemed…
CALCUTTA’S INDIANS TAKE ELECTIONS IN STRIDE
21 November 1989 Reuters News English (c) 1989 Reuters Limited Calcutta, Nov 21, Reuters – The six Bengalis splashing around a fire hydrant inches from…
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!”…
DESERTS – GREENING OF THAR
Lush vegetation in the Thar? Groves jamun trees? Mighty rivers the size of the Ganga and Indus? Seasons of monsoon-like rainfall? None of this is…
MIZORAM-A RETURN TO ARMS
Not for nothing has Mizo National Front (MNF) President Laldenga acquired a reputation for being a cool and calculating man. Towards the end of 1981,…
Cheating The Hangman
Convicted killers Billa and Ranga were expected to make headlines last fortnight. Make news, they certainly did, but not the way everybody anticipated. Instead of…
HANGING FIRE
The Quality of justice seemed to be under tremendous strain last fortnight. At issue was the vexatious question of capital punishment. As usual, the shock…
SHOW ME THE JOBS
The government is striving mightily, but the needle is moving inexorably lower on the jobs meter. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and the…