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Finance Minister Mr Chidambaram has finally moved to tackle the enveloping crisis in external financing with some tough measures like curtailing imports of gold and silver and other non-essential items and raising debt flows through overseas bonds and commercial borrowings.

There was always a face behind the moderate-hardliner divide in the BJP. During the Ramjanmabhoomi movement, it was Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani who represented the dichotomy. To many, this ideological rift was no more than a façade since the basic anti-minority creed of the saffron brotherhood was believed to be cast in stone.

New Delhi: India-China-US Trilateral Dialogue at the political level will soon become realty. The dialogues amongst the three nations at track-II and track 1.5 levels are progressing well which would ultimately decide for the dialogue amongst the three parties at the political level.

It is a tragedy in Indian democracy that politicians of the day are shying away from transparency and do not want a clean public life. Rather they are interested in a process that may rob the judiciary of its independence. The proposed National Judicial Appointment Commission Bill is an attempt to subjugate the judiciary through the appointment of judges.

Escalation in LoC ceasefire violations by the Pakistani army and in the infiltrations and the simultaneous increase in attacks on Indian Army personnel in Jammu and Kashmir raise three questions: One, does the last week’s Poonch ambush killing five Indian soldiers indicate a change in Pakistan-based terrorist groups strategy? Two, has the Pakistani army decided to again go belligerent on the Jammu and Kashmir issue? Do the happenings of the past few weeks reflect a change in the equation between the Pakistani Army bosses and the Nawaz Sharif government?

Why is the national government encouraging the movement of Gorkhaland by inviting the separatist Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) for periodical talks in Delhi ignoring the practicability of and the danger surrounding such a demand. If the three Darjeeling district sub-divisions – Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong - having a total population of less than one million and habitable area of only around 500 sq. kms merit a national-level discussion on their statehood, then most of the country’s 660-odd districts may also deserve conversion into independent states to protect local ethnicity, homogeneity, culture, tradition and dialects and, also, to ensure social and economic progress.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A bruising political confrontation is in the making with the United Democratic Front (UDF) Government hell bent upon defeating the opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF)’s ‘Wall Street model’ secretariat siege, to be held from August 12, and the latter pulling out all stops to ensure its ‘total success’.

The small step taken by Rajya Sabha Chairman, Hamid Ansari, last week, in his bid to check disruption of the house day after day, should have been welcomed but, unfortunately, it proved counter-productive. He named 20 BJP and two TDP members for disrupting the proceeding and fixed them. When the names of the members were published in next day’s bulletin, the BJP kicked up a row, resulting in repeated adjournment of the house. While the Chairman did not withdraw the names, he agreed that the practice of naming will be discontinued till a final call is taken at the next all all-party meet.

Progress is a curious word. Of the many conceptions of progress, the one I have found most useful was framed by that great shaman of our times, Ashis Nandy. “An expansion in the awareness of oppression.” This expansion, ostensibly taking place with time, has to build in the element of retroactive realisation of the violation of human rights. An evolving human rights discourse has to insure against those words, so simple yet so decisive - “it is too late now.” Far away, in southern Orissa, an explosive experiment in grassroots democracy is shaking the world. If it has not shaken your world, it better had.

Four months of the current financial year had already gone. Yet, there is little to cheer about the performance of the country’s industrial sector, barring public sector NTPC-led electricity generation activity. Industrial production increased 0.3 percent in June after having been unchanged in May. For the first quarter as a whole, industrial production moved up at an annual rate of 0.6 percent. In June, manufacturing production rose 0.3 percent following an increase of 0.2 percent in May.