Here’s a question for those who oppose dialogue with Pakistan and are votaries of military solutions to our problems with that country: Sir, if you know not with whom to talk in Pakistan, then how’d you know with whom to fight in a country ravaged by terrorist violence? Read more

I’m no admirer of B S Yeddyurappa. But I respect the fact that he’s an elected Chief Minister who cannot be trifled around by moneybags and mining mafias.

There indeed is a factional dimension to the crisis arising out of the Bellary mining syndicate’s rebellion against the Karnataka CM. Read more

I agree broadly with the CPM’s Prakash Karat’s interpretation of reactions in India to reports of border incursions by Chinese troops.  His charge of a US hand in the exaggerated response — bordering on jingoism—by a section of the media and security experts has about it a ring of certainty. My reading of the situation is based on suspicion, a kind of putting two and two together. Read more

I met Meghalaya Chief Minister DD Lapang at a dinner reception in Delhi the other night. He’s a good listener who put up with my monologue for quite a while as I held forth on ways to open up opportunities in the rest of India for youth from the seven northeastern states. Read more

I can feel these days a tenuous consensus building among security experts in India and Pakistan for some kind of institutionalised interaction between intelligence agencies of the two countries. It all began with a rare meeting between Pak ISI chief Shuja Pasha and defense advisors in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. Read more

I’ve been travelling in Pakistan for almost a week; having arrived here on the day Jaswant Singh was expelled from the BJP for what the Sangh Parivar considered an act of political blasphemy! His prognosis of Muhammad Ali Jinnah might have caused a stir in India. Read more

Many Indians, like many Pakistanis, do not trust Asif Ali Zardari. I do and for good reasons. After a long, long time somebody of consequence is willing to state upfront the unpalatable truth of Islamabad consciously waging a proxy war against India and in Afghanistan - the former for avenging Bangladesh in Kashmir and the latter for making up for the loss of strategic depth caused by Pakistan’s dismemberment in the 1971 war. Read more

Music and musicians have often been under attack in Pakistan. Their detractors earlier were right-wing religio-political outfits. The offensive now is led by the likes of Tehreek-e-Taliban and other hotheads who even consider as un-Islamic the “moving picture” as it appears on television. But Michael Jackson’s death was big news in that country. Read more

The story might well be apocryphal but it’s very much part of the foreign office folklore. Then a joint secretary in the ministry of external affairs, Muchkund Dubey had the habit of talking loudly on phone. His boss and foreign secretary M K Rasgotra occupied a room a few paces away from Dubey’s in the South Block. Read more

Must  the  BJP  reinvent  itself  to  become  a centrist alternative to the Congress?  For over a decade now, the saffron party has lived with regional groupings by obfuscating its core Hindutva ideology. But the mask comes off during election time, as it did after Varun Gandhi’s hate speech and closer to  the  voting  date  in  Gujarat when it projected Narendra Modi as Prime Minister to the embarrassment of L K Advani and total disregard of alliance partners like the JD (U). Read more