S.K. Sinha

Aug 08, 2010
S.K. Sinha

S.K. Sinha

Democracy arrested

The architecture of the Indian Constitution is based on the spirit of liberty, equality and fraternity, as espoused in the French Revolution; on the concept of the rule of the people, by the people and for the people, as articulated by Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address; and on the format of parliamentary democracy as developed in Britain, the mother of democracy.

Junk junkets

Ghulam Nabi Fai, an American citizen of Indian origin, has hit the headlines in the US, India and Pakistan. He was arrested in the US for taking millions of dollars from the ISI to propagate the Pakistan case on Kashmir through high-profile seminars and also influencing US Senators and Congressmen. He had been at this for nearly two decades and is currently under house arrest.

Not the India Nehru discovered

Corruption today is rampant in India at all levels. The amounts involved boggle the mind. Scam after scam has surfaced. Never before has the functioning of the administration been so vitiated.

Toll for the great

Jagjivan Ram was a great leader and administrator. It is a great resilience and spirit that enabled him to overcome bias and rise to the levels he did.
I had the privilege of interacting with him since my childhood. There were early signs of the grit that would make him a household name in India. A relative of mine, G.S. Prasad, and Jagjivan Ram had studied in the same class at a school in Arrah.

Himalayan blunders

Perhaps no country has faced as many invasions as India. During the ancient period, we defeated world-conquering armies that invaded our country. However, during the medieval period, beginning with the second millennium, we suffered successive defeats at the hands of numerous invaders with disastrous consequences.

A Civilisation Gate

In the post-Colonial era, renaming of cities became fairly common all over the world. In many cases it was correcting the spelling in conformity with the correct pronunciation of the name, like Calcutta to Kolkata, Bombay to Mumbai or Peking to Beijing. In quite a few cases the name was changed completely, like Madras to Chennai or Batavia to Jakarta.

The man on horseback

During the controversy over the joint parliamentary committee in Parliament, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee stated on February 21, 2011, “Parliament cannot be mortgaged to the conceding of a demand”, warning that if “hatred for the parliamentary institution was generated

J&K: Truth lost in translation

Although the interlocutors appointed by the Centre have so far denied it, the media has been persistently reporting that pre-1953 status is being recommended for Kashmir.
The crux issue in Kashmir has been obfuscated by virulent propaganda and misrepresentation of facts. The common thinking is that Kashmir has a Muslim majority and the people there want to break away from India and join Pakistan or become independent.

Interpretation of Pak’s maladies

To understand the Pakistani mindset, one has to go back in history. Sir Syed Ahmed, addressing a meeting on March 16, 1888, stated, “Is it possible that the two nations — the Mohammedans and the Hindus — would sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not”. Jinnah succeeded in carving a separate nation state for Muslims. He had grandiose plans of the two wings of Pakistan in the West and the East being linked by a corridor passing through Muslim cultural centres like Delhi, Lucknow and Patna.

The Afghan cauldron

Lord Curzon, at the turn of the 20th century, aptly described Afghanistan as “a piece on the chess board on which is being played out the game for domination of the world”.

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.

Horoscope