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Briefing

Order out of chaos
Quiver by Javed Akhtar, poems and ghazals translated from Urdu by David Mathews, HarperCollins Publishers, India; pages 251, Rs.350. WHO ...

Ills of a draft policy
Draft National Health Policy mentions the ills that characterise the country's public health care system but fails to provide satisfactory ...

For decentralised development
The panchayati raj institutions should be strengthened in order to enhance the quality of development and democracy in the country.

A nuclear wedge
The reported move by India to deploy nuclear weapons opens up the possibilities of accidental or unauthorised use of the weapons, nuclear ...

Desalination thrust
The world's largest sea water hybrid desalination plant to be coupled to a nuclear power station is coming up at Kalpakkam. THE ...

To excise history
The NCERT-mandated censorship of history in certain secondary school textbooks raises disturbing questions. HISTORICAL scholarship ...

A programme gone awry
A UNICEF-sponsored mass campaign of vitamin A administration for children in Assam leads to some startling consequences and questions.

An eye for the appropriate
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Barefoot Architects is a recognition for a group that paused to notice the solutions that already ...

The truth about POTO
The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance draws heavily from anti-terrorism Acts in the United States and the United Kingdom. But unlike ...

Perverting the Constitution
By issuing the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, the Vajpayee government, which lacks the required parliamentary strength to get it approved, ...

An expanding movement
A national conference of the All India Democratic Women's Association considers the problems and challenges that confront women and re-asserts ...

'We are the true victims of terrorism'
Interview with Sahar Saba, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. "No words, pictures or poems can describe the despair, ...

An insider's view - from the outside
On the achievements, and failures, of the Indian Police Service. FOR quite some time, I have been wanting ...

To stem the decay
The Y.K. Alagh Committee points to the deficient state of the civil services and suggests measures to make the bureaucracy more efficient and ...

Hindutva ire
The NCERT's censorship of history textbooks represents a Hindutva attack on the ideas of pluralism and tolerance.

The collapse of Enron
The biggest American company ever to go bankrupt, leaves a trail of questions and lessons. IF you had to ...

Understanding human language
The text of the address by Professor Noam Chomsky at the Special Convocation of the University of Calcutta held on November 22, 2001 to award ...

The disingenuous Minister
By going ahead with the accelerated public sector sell-off programme, the Central government, which has constituted itself to manage a country ...

An alliance in the making
The NDA government, which has extended unstinted support to the United States' war against Afghanistan, now attempts to forge closer military ...

The Benazir mission
PRIME MINISTER Atal Behari Vajpayee may not be in favour of a meeting with Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf at this juncture, ...

WAR AND TALKS
Afghanistan comes to a crossroads as a complex set of factors involving the domestic groups and the international players add new dimensions to ...

Trade and politics
The future of the Indo-Nepal Preferential Trade Treaty hangs in the balance. WHEN T.K. Gupta stepped forward to receive, on behalf ...

Himalayan thunder
Nepal declares a state of emergency and the spotlight falls on the role of the King and the Army after the Maoist extremists strike in a big ...

From Bhopal to Toulouse
Seventeen years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, a blast in a chemical plant in the French city of Toulouse once again brings into focus the ...

Hard times
Even after the installation of a democratically elected government, the wounds that the coup and violence of 2000 inflicted on Fiji's social ...

Vote and volte-face
A moderate ethnic Albanian party wins the elections in Kosovo and then talks tough on the issue of independence. KOSOVO, ...

'Race is not a critical problem in Fiji'
Interview with Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. As the newly elected Prime Minister, what is your vision for Fiji? For a peaceful, ...

'Reconciliation should start from the top'
Interview with former Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry. The expiry of agricultural leases is of deep concern to the Indian farmers. How ...

Peace on the horizon
A peace process mediated by Nelson Mandela raises hopes in strife-torn Burundi. WHILE the world's attention was focussed on the ...

The Marrakesh deal
Despite giving large concessions to the major inudstrialised countries, COP-7 succeeds in establishing an international architecture for ...

Sinking Tuvalu
SOON Tuvalu will be lost forever. Barely 23 years since it gained independence, Tuvalu, a tiny island country in the Pacific Ocean ...

A chronology
1827:Jean-Baptiste Fourier, the French polymath, using the analogy of a greenhouse, suggests the possibility a global warming. 1863:Irish ...

Nuclear weapons and imperialism
The Unfinished Twentieth Century by Jonathan Schell; Verso Books, London and New York, 2001; pages xvi + 104, $19. COUNTING in ...

A master chronicler
The Unknown Hsuang-Tsang, edited by D. Devahuti; Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001; pages.184, Rs.495. MUCH of our ...

Debating modernism
When Was Modernism? Essays on Contemporary Cultural Practice in India by Geeta Kapur; Tulika Press, 2000 & 2001; pages 439 ...

For decentralised development
The panchayati raj institutions should be strengthened in order to enhance the quality of development and democracy in the country.

The truth about POTO
The draconian Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance draws heavily from anti-terrorism Acts in the United States and the United Kingdom. But unlike ...

Perverting the Constitution
By issuing the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, the Vajpayee government, which lacks the required parliamentary strength to get it approved, ...

An expanding movement
A national conference of the All India Democratic Women's Association considers the problems and challenges that confront women and re-asserts ...

'We are the true victims of terrorism'
Interview with Sahar Saba, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. "No words, pictures or poems can describe the despair, ...

To stem the decay
The Y.K. Alagh Committee points to the deficient state of the civil services and suggests measures to make the bureaucracy more efficient and ...

Of Ayodhya and the Congress
Former Prime Minister V.P. Singh's deposition before the Liberhan Commission of inquiry throws fresh light on the events leading to the ...

The price of reforms
The Tamil Nadu government resorts to massive increases in power tariffs, bus fares and prices of food articles sold through the public ...

A game of confrontation
The disciplinary action taken against six Indian cricket players during the country's tour of South Africa almost leads to an unseemly ...

A blow for federalism
The States make significant gains in the seventh meeting of the Inter-State Council. WITH a coalition ruling at the Centre and ...

Communal designs
THEIR backs to the wall, both the National Conference (N.C.) and the Bharatiya Janata Party were in desperate search for a deus ex ...

A chance for peace
Events that have followed the removal of the 'military commander' of the Hizbul Mujahideen for the Kashmir Valley, Abdul Majid Dar, indicate ...

A feud in Uttar Pradesh
Even as Assembly elections approach in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling BJP is further weakened by the feud between Chief Minister Rajnath Singh and ...