This is the story of how and why the framers of the Constitution of India deliberately designed a procedural error in the adoption of the new Constitution with a view to severing the seamless transition of legal authority from the British Crown-in-Parliament to the new Republic of India. The deliberate procedural error consisted in a […]
A serious strategic partnership between Australia and India has long been a missing link in the security architecture of Indo-Pacific Asia. Now the gap is at last being filled, if a high-level visit this week is anything to go by. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr was in New Delhi on January 21st and 22nd, to […]
“We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.” Macaulay’s words aptly describe the fits of chauvinism that seize Indians. But this time it has exacted a toll of consequence, the result of a pathetic surrender by a man of vision. Read Here – The Hindu
They tower over the natives: martial torsos; arms with coiled-wire sinews and a combat-hardened stare. Goliath hands clutch nervously at the tote bags. These are ex-Israeli soldiers and they are in India. Haggard and weather-beaten, fresh from military conscription they come to Delhi, Goa and the Himalayas to party and regale each other with stories […]
Last weekend, India’s Congress Party, which has enjoyed power for almost nine years as the majority party in the current UPA coalition government, set down a roadmap not only for its own future but also for that of the world’s largest democracy. At a party convention in the northern city of Jaipur, it appointed the young […]
When Rahul Gandhi was formally anointed this week to the number two position in India‘s Congress Party, his installation as vice president was accompanied by the usual shenanigans among party operatives. Nine years after the grandson of Indira Gandhi – and the son of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi – entered politics, the highest decision-making body […]
Rahul Gandhi‘s coronation speech as Congress’ vice-president gave clear hints that while he may have been officially or emotionally designated as Number Two, he would be the de-facto Number One. His mother, Congress President, Sonia Gandhi will be the patron, who would love to see him exercise all powers that lakhs of Congress workers had bestowed upon […]
In rare moments of earnestness, Rahul Gandhi has in the past confessed to a keenness to “work his way out of a job,” so to speak. The Congress party, which is something of a Nehru-Gandhi family heirloom, privileges people like himself, who belong to the First Family of Indian politics, but he himself was working […]
In the last two years India and Pakistan have managed to rebuild ties after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks struck a devestating blow to bilateral relations between the two countries. However, the escalation of tensions over the latest incident on the Line of Control (LoC) threatens this normalization of ties. In 2012, after much discussion and deliberation, both countries […]
It’s no easy task navigating through heavy fog in the dead of night. But on one memorable occasion in New Delhi, my driver wasn’t going to be stopped. It was 3 a.m. as we careened out of Indira Gandhi International Airport and onto the highway leading to my downtown hotel. The fog was so thick […]
looking beyond borders 