His master's whipping boy
Normally, one would ask what the bureaucracy has to do with the electoral fortunes of political parties. The bureaucracy is supposed by definition to be politically neutral. It is not expected to further or retard the fortunes of a particular political party in an election.
A Tamil version of Hindu nationalism
The Bharatiya Janata Party has made some unprecedented gains in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the alliance it struck with Jayalalitha's All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam -- a party on whose name the word Dravida is nothing but an appendage, stripped of all its Tamil nationalist connotations.
A flip-flop on DMK
The public should be forgiven for thinking the initials in Justice M. C. Jain's name stand for Most Controversial. Whatever else the Commission headed by him lacked, it did not lack the capacity to stir up political controversy.
Lessons for leaders
That India has the largest illiterate population in the world -- something in the range of 424 million -- is widely known. When the Human Development in South Asia 1998 (HDSA) report, which was released on Saturday, points out that education is the key to the future economic prosperity of this region, it is only stating the obvious.
Black and White of justice
British justice has always claimed to be colour blind. This is true. It is blind to the fact that colour is often a factor in crimes committed against non-white people. In normal speak this would mean that British justice is racist.
The Janeva Convention
Leafing idly through the family archives yesterday, I unearthed a set of yellowing photographs which put the clock back almost 15 years, to the time when my grandmother, a small woman with silver hair and iron will, had made me a prisoner under the Janeva Convention.
