Necessity is the mother of fabrication too

Tuesday , 11 December '07

India’s uranium deposits are limited and of low grade,” Hindustan Times declared on December 12, 2006, in a large, prominently displayed, boxed item.

But who has that distant a horizon?

Thursday , 15 November '07

It really is ‘crunch time’ for Pakistan, says a keen observer: the mere installation of a civilian government will not change the character of Pakistan.

Pakistan beyond Musharraf

Wednesday , 14 November '07

Pakistan has lost control over half its territory. In all probability it will regain that control at some time in the future.

Where have all the general’s cheerleaders gone?

Tuesday , 13 November '07

The only persons who could have been surprised by what Musharraf has done are the Americans - who had invested everything in him, and as a consequence just would not see - and Musharraf’s acolytes here in India.

Reflection in the jigsaw

Wednesday , 30 May '07

In the concluding extracts from his new book, Arun Shourie makes a case for a strengthened judiciary, compulsory voting and a reformed legislature

All the president’s persons

Tuesday , 29 May '07

Is the political class ready for reform? In his new book, The Parliamentary System: What we have made of it, what we can make of it, Arun Shourie makes a strong case for empowering the executive. Restructuring the system so that the president is elected by the electorate and is empowered to select his/her own ministers, he argues, will improve governance. Exclusive extracts from the book:

The way out

Saturday , 23 December '06

Looking at atomic power as the major component of our electricity supplies in the future has been India’s basic strategic flaw. As far as nuclear reactors are concerned, look to them principally for our weapons programme, not for electricity — for we do have other ways of securing electricity

Facts versus the government’s fiction

Friday , 22 December '06

A section by section analysis of the Act passed by the US Congress reveals stipulations that tie India down. Yet the fiction has been purveyed by the government through the media that these provisions have been dropped. The prime minister’s assurances to Parliament may not mean anything

The ‘non-binding’ myth

Thursday , 21 December '06

In the Act, there is no categorisation of sections into binding and non-binding. We are left with assurances proffered in private by US officials that some provisions will be ‘non-binding’. Will we rest our country’s security on these? And if we do, what is the guarantee that the next Administration will also disregard the clear enunciations of the Act passed by Congress?

‘But you must wait for the 123 Agreement’

Wednesday , 20 December '06

Even as the people and Parliament are being fed routine platitudes on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the government has swallowed whole all the conditions that the US Congress has set out in the final Act. There is going to be nothing in the 123 Agreement which is not already known

Time to deal with the aftermath

Thursday , 30 November '06

So if, as the prime minister put it, American inspectors will not be allowed to ‘roam around’ in our nuclear plants, will they be allowed to loiter in or march through them? Is that the distinction that we will now be fed?

Not one concern has registered

Wednesday , 29 November '06

Every single element that the prime minister had listed as unacceptable in the Indo-US nuclear deal is still there. Is the deal acceptable in spite of these provisions that are ‘not acceptable to us’?

Now let the PM square this circle

Tuesday , 28 November '06

What had the prime minister drawn as the contours beyond which India would not budge on the Indo-US nuclear deal? Do the provisions of the bill as finally passed by the Senate fall within those contours? If they do not, how can the country now be made to swallow the deal?

China’s economic growth is not just ‘economic growth’

Wednesday , 8 November '06

Real power translates directly into the ability to bring others around to subserve a country’s interests. India must take a clear-eyed view of what China is doing, and frame its own strategy

To race China, first let’s get our feet off the brakes

Tuesday , 7 November '06

India’s growth story must generate confidence, not complacence. We must learn from China the ability to move on from momentary success or failure, keep the focus on reforms, take a decision and execute it

Learning to shield our academic excellence

Thursday , 14 September '06

The number of students who come to India to study is going down. Meanwhile, the amount of money spent on Indian students studying abroad is sufficient to set up 30-40 IIMs or 15-20 IITs every year. The threat is that we may lose our best minds at a rate faster than ever before. The opportunity is that we can be educators to the world

We need the best for the brightest

Wednesday , 13 September '06

Of course we need to expand and reorient our primary and vocational education. But that “higher education, the IITs and IIMs are for the elite” is nonsense. Higher learning and R&D can follow only from such higher learning and are just as necessary. It’s not “Either/or” but “And also”

In this tech-driven world, we can’t be asleep at the wheel

Tuesday , 12 September '06

The cost of squandering resources on populist schemes will be paid not just in missed advantages but also in the resulting social unrest. First in a three-part series

‘Parity’, did you say?

Thursday , 24 August '06

While India fantasises about “parity”, the US aims to acquire, in the form of an “ally”, an instrument that will do its bidding because it is dependent on the US, says Arun Shourie in the final part of his series on the nuclear deal