S. Nihal Singh

Dec 08, 2010

Who will match the Maximum Leader?

The significance of Hugo Chavez, whose death is being mourned in Venezuela and in much of Latin America, is that with his great showmanship and populism, he kept alive a narrative in an age dominated

A new crisis for EU

The results of Italy’s elections leading to a political stalemate are important, not only for Italy but for the eurozone, the European Union (EU) and the world. Although the Italian tendency to exaggerate was very much in evidence, the stark message to the EU and its most powerful member, Germany’s Angela Merkel, was crystal clear: Italy and other members of the eurozone, particularly on the southern periphery, were simply fed up with the kind of austerity that has been imposed under Berlin’s leadership.

Of legal deals & agents

While the Bofors controversy was raging in the country, I asked Dinesh Singh, then a Cabinet minister, why Rajiv Gandhi, Prime Minister of the day, had declared that he would have no agents in defence

Votebank freedom

They keep piling up — Salman Rushdie, Kamal Haasan, Ashis Nandy. The authorities explain it differently, through a single prism — maintenance of law and order. India has dropped a few notches in the freedom of speech and expression scale in the bottom half of the list. As the slide goes on, there is no end in sight.

A new spring for Palestine

The ray of light Palestinians see in an otherwise bleak horizon on the outcome of the Israeli election boosting the centre-left could prove a mirage. That the Yesh Atid party of the television presenter turned politician, Yair Lapid, did far better than expected, securing 19 seats, second to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu 31, was a result of his emphasis on domestic bread and butter themes such as expensive housing and the rising cost of living.

Miles to go

What has been described as the coronation of Rahul Gandhi to the No.

Aam aadmi’s last hope?

After the flurry of strip-tease revelations, Arvind Kejriwal has withdrawn to the shadows for the moment, overshadowed as he has been by the unprecedented outrage over the brutal rape of the 23-year-old girl on a Delhi bus.

Feminism, Chapter II

The national outrage over the brutal rape of a 23-year-old woman in a Delhi bus and her subsequent death, so evident on the streets of the capital and around the country, can only be the beginning of a long journey to giving Indian women anything approaching equality.

New dawn for Japan

The expected victory of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the traditional rulers for most of the post-World War period, comes at a critical time for the country. The malaise is both domestic and in international affairs.

All eyes on Palestine

For all the symbolism involved in the Palestinian Authority’s victory at the United Nations by securing a two-thirds majority for its enhanced status as a non-member state, it is a landmark achievemen

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