India’s Marxist veteran looks back with pride
15 June 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited CALCUTTA, India, June 15 (Reuter) – The leader of the world’s oldest democratically elected communist …
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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…
VIOLENT PHILIPPINE POLLS SEEN MARKING RETURN OF OLD POLITICS
17 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 17, Reuter – Monday’s local elections are billed as President Corazon Aquino’s last…
PHILIPPINES MUST NOW FOCUS ON ECONOMY, ANALYSTS SAY
19 January 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, Jan 19, Reuter – The Philippines has emerged from a tumultuous year with democracy…
Focus- Indian polls start “calm and confident”
16 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Indian voters queued up early on Monday to cast…
India wrestles with the wages of democracy
22 February 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, Feb 22 (Reuters) – “Watch this space.” The website of India’s 112-year-old Congress…
India waits in trepidation for election result
1 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 1 (Reuters) – Indians waited uneasily on Sunday for official results from…
Who’s afraid of India’s Hindu nationalists?
3 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 3 (Reuters) – India’s Bharatiya Janata Party appeared tantalisingly close on…
Focus- India set for Hindu-led coalition government
10 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 10 (Reuters) – India was set on Tuesday for a new coalition…
India’s BJP wins power, but daunting task ahead
15 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 15 (Reuters) – Atal Behari Vajpayee received the green light on Sunday…
India’s Vajpayee tries to form coalition
16 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 16 (Reuters) – The leader of India’s Hindu-dominated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)…
Focus- Hindu leader Vajpayee takes power in India
19 March 1998 Reuters News English (c) 1998 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 19 (Reuters) – Hindu nationalist leader Atal Behari Vajpayee took office on…
ASIAN RICE SUPPLY PLAGUED BY SHORTAGES, SOARING PRICES
24 May 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited LOS BANOS, Philippines, May 24, Reuter – Asia’s rice producers, reeling from the effects of…
PHILIPPINE OFFICIALS LEAVE ANTI-NUCLEAR ISSUE TO AQUINO
19 July 1988 Reuters News English (c) 1988 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 19, Reuter – Philippine officials said on Tuesday that It was up to…
Commonwealth chief says African democracy growing
20 March 1997 Reuters News English (c) 1997 Reuters Limited NEW DELHI, March 20 (Reuter) – Democracy has taken root in most African countries but…
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…
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…
Garam hawa
India must construct an enlightened climate change policy ‘FOOD PRICES set to rise as floods ruin crops’. ‘Prime Minister promises aid to flood victims’. Does…
MANILA UNLOADS SUGAR STOCKS TO CURB PRICE RISE
17 July 1987 Reuters News English (c) 1987 Reuters Limited MANILA, July 17 – The Philippines” Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) has ordered all its reserve…
Ready For Battle
I remember sticking an aluminium one-yen coin and a copper one-US-cent coin to my computer screen in Tokyo around the mid-1990s and watching in fascination…
IT’S THE ELECTION, STUPID
The economy is whirling around in a populist spiral Pranab Mukherjee is starting to look worryingly like a feckless heir squandering his generous inheritance while…
The Best Companies To Work For
Know one’s onions” means to know one’s subject well. But do we really know why our economy fares as it does, how supply and demand…
Going Nowhere
I remember my first car with great fondness. It was a Fiat 1100D, and I crashed it barely a month after my wife and I…
Pester Power
Remember when mall meant a tree-shaded promenade in Shimla or one of those picturesque cantonment towns, and plastic was when your grandmother graduated from tin…
TYRE PRICES – VASTLY OVER-INFLATED
Tyers are one essential commodity over which the Government seems to exert no control whatsoever. In the last six months prices have risen twice. And…
From Flood To Trickle
Large advertisements in Delhi newspapers-last fortnight announced that Mother Dairy was being forced to dilute the fat content of milk supplied to the capital’s citizens…
MATHEMATICS OF RAGAS
When Frenchman Bernard Bel and American Jim Arnold met by chance in a Delhi hotel in September 1979, it turned out to be a momentous…
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…
Lemmings or Llamas?
The US is on life support, and Asian creditors led by China, which holds $1.16 trillion of US treasuries, control the intravenous drip. Asian central…
DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARNESS
The Washington post adopted this four-word slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” in February 2017, its first in 140 years. It was used by its owner…
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…
ONE NATION, 173 M VOTERS
To be precise, 173, 213, 635 Voters aged 21 years or above. That was the total on the electoral rolls published, constituency by constituency, between…
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…