Competitive intolerance is best challenged by protecting individual rights
The August issue of Pragati features my review of Salil Tripathi’s book: ‘Offense: The Hindu Case‘.
Mr Tripathi’s answer would no doubt be unequivocal: No. But by placing his arguments in religious morality rather than constitutional morality, he leaves room for unwinnable religious arguments. To be fair, [...]
Understanding the motivations
Aatish Taseer’s shocking new book will be released in India in a few weeks time. Apart from other things, Taseer’s lifestory is fascinating in it self: He is the son of Pakistani politician Salman Taseer and well-known Indian journalist Tavleen Singh.
While we await the book, here is an interesting excerpt from an interview [...]
Towards a better polity
By Harsh Gupta
The BJP is the only party which can be both truly nationalist and truly liberal – and while it has many defects it is much closer to those ideals, compared to other parties. The other parties are pseudo-secular and throwback leftists- these communal socialists believe in vote banks and socially [...]
Knowing the man!
Writing in the Indian Express, Swapan Dasgupta argues,
Patnaik’s go-it-alone gamble is premised on two parallel assumptions, culled from the results of municipal and panchayat elections over the past two years. The local elections, which were fought by all the parties independently, saw dramatic increases in the strength of the BJD, minor gains for [...]
NDTV
While Barkha Dutt goes hammer and tongs against Mr Kunte’s post, guess where it is featured?
“Appalling journalism,” says Chyetanya Kunte, a Netherlands-based engineer, on his web blog Nov 27.
“In one instance, Barkha Dutt of NDTV asks a husband about his wife who is either stuck or held as a hostage. The poor guy adds in [...]
NDTV’s conduct should not surprise us.
In an op-ed written over an year ago (unfortunately, due to site changes, it is inaccessible on Hindustan Times), Barkha Dutt, the managing editor of NDTV, had vented against anonymous bloggers who espouse popular opinion which are ”often bigoted, blasphemous and banal.”
It is an interesting choice of words–Dutt covers the [...]
Why did we forget Nariman House
Kanchan Gupta was the first to report this story. Now, if a report in the Times of India is to be believed, the government apparently ”forgot” to mention the Nariman House massacre in the United Nation Security Council because it may offend Muslim sensiblities.
Israel has been one of India’s closest [...]
Update: The encounters continue. Just insane.
Update: 81 confirmed dead including 7 foreigners.
Update: Taj encounter is still going on.
Update: CNN-IBN is reporting that there is firing in Ramada hotel. Unconfirmed.
Update: CNN international had a security analyst who claimed that lives of hostages might be in danger because the Indian government would like to control the situation [...]
A question of power
Echoing Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar, Amit Varma asks,
1] Frame an argument, or even your position on the subject, that states why Kashmir should remain part of India.
2] Then replace the word ‘India’ with ‘the British empire’, and ‘Kashmir’ with ‘India’.[link]
Now, the secession argument is terribly complex. Taken to its logical conclusion, what [...]
Communalism comes in many shades
Saba Naqvi Bhaumik takes a walk in Old Delhi and conducts an impromptu survey. From that Ms Bhaumik concludes that aam Muslim is not only well-informed about the nuclear deal–unlike what the foreign policy wonks believe–but opposes the deal as inimical to the interests of Muslims.
It would be easy enough to [...]
