 |
 |
|
Behind
Pakistan's Defeat
A
secret inquiry into Pakistan's debacle in the 1971 war held army atrocities,
widespread corruption, cowardice and the moral laxity of its generals
as prime reasons for the defeat in East Pakistan. The explosive Hamoodur
report has never been disclosed-until now.
|
|
|
The
Nation
|
|
|
Peace
Takes a Knock
The
Hizb has resumed battle, the killings continue and the Hurriyat is in
a quandary but the Government feels these are temporary roadblocks to
peace.
|
|
|
|
|
AS
Good As It Gets?
The
economy has been chugging along well this year. Will it pick up speed
or lose steam in the coming months? Right now there is more optimism than
unease about the future.
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
BOOKS
20 Little Indias
Essayists
with their quills on the pulse of the country
By
Ashok KOSHY
|
ELSEWHERE:
UNUSUAL TAKES ON INDIA
Edited by
Kai Friese
Penguine
Rs. 250
|
The head
honcho at Penguin India confessed to me a couple of years ago that it
was house policy not to publish any material that had already seen the
light of day in a newspaper, book or magazine. The arrival of Elsewhere,
therefore, gave me a bit of a turn since the 20 essays in it have already
appeared in The India Magazine between 1996 and 1998, when Kai Friese
was the magazine's editor. One is relieved that Penguin has had a change
of heart on what it ought to publish, else these extraordinary nuggets
might never have been blessed with a second coming. The India Magazine
silently slipped away into oblivion some years ago, not obviously for
the material it printed. In his introduction, Friese asserts his sole
responsibility lay in providing the current publishers with what he thought
was the best writing of his editorial stint with the magazine. He has
chosen shrewdly.
Much is
written about inscrutable India and the nightmare of attempting to pigeonhole
its diversity into neat sub-heads. These authors have their quills unerringly
on the pulse of the country and can fathom "the grain of daily life, its
pleasures and perils". "The House on Debendra Ghose Road" is a fine chronicle
of a few hours spent through "the arena of privileged domesticity and
sexuality" within an ancient and venerable mansion, in the company of
three elderly gentlemen on a hot April morning. Amit Chaudhuri is a master
of language and at moments quite surpasses Charles Lamb, whom he undoubtedly
read at Balliol.
An Englishman
is found with his throat slit in a hotel in Goa. The author is given the
task by the victim's policeman-brother of bringing the culprits to book.
In a riveting expose, Bishakha Datta converts subtly from sniffing bloodhound
to rationalist patriot, indifferent in the end to "The Death of a Tourist",
since "all conventional signposts of morality have dissolved into a landscape
of greys where there is no right, no wrong, no good, no bad, no truth,
no lies". But gore and nostalgia aside, my favourite pieces include Pankaj
Mishra's evocative reportage of Sonia Gandhi's fumbling foray into politics
while campaigning in Goa ("Among the Believers") where, in the finest
traditions of Italian soap opera, "a middle-class woman from near Torino
tries to rescue India's oldest political party from extinction"; and Manjula
Padmanabhan's "Transports of Delight", where the wicked three-wheeled
scooter rickshaw is lyrically immortalised, both in prose and illustration.
I reserve the laurel, however, for Anita Roy, who with brevity of space
and stiletto sharp wit has portrayed the "nouveau Rajas and their dishevelled,
bored, expat Maharani-manques", former inhabitants of middle-class Wimbledon
who domicile temporarily in diplomatic postings amongst sweaty natives,
subsuming their overt racism in "the sweet cloud of white meringue" on
the high commissioner's immaculately manicured lawns.
"All Indians
are ch---yas," says a CBI official to the investigative journalist in
"Tourist". Perhaps, but the 20 essays show us up to be a marvellously
diverse people, unfazed by poverty and squalor, sporting the will to survive
against all odds and overcome in the end. Vive le difference!
|
|
|
 Web
Exclusives |
|
|
COLUMN |
|
|
|
|
 Don't
ask for more funds, demand the right to collect, INDIA TODAY Associate
Editor V. Shankar Aiyar writes to Chandrababu Naidu in Au
ContrAiyar.
|
|
|
CHAT |
|
|
|
|
 Read
the transcript
of
Wednesday's live chat with Vasudevan Bhaskaran, Chief Coach of
Indian hockey.
|
|
|
BEAT
STREET |
|
|
|
|
The
Mercenary Journalist
Pressures of meeting deadlines have always been
nerve-wracking in Kashmir. But never before has there been such desperation
to be the first to break news, writes India Today Special Correspondent
Ramesh Vinayak who has covered militancy for over a decade.
|
|
|
TALKING
POINT |
|
|
|
|
"May be Veerappan should be given a chance
to reform," Karnataka
CM S.M. Krishna tells INDIA TODAY Principal Correspondent Stephen
David as one of the options being considered to secure the release of
superstar Rajkumar.
|
|
|
DESPATCHES |
|
|
|
|
In
the eerie world of superstition that still exists in Andhra Pradesh's
Telengana region, four women and a man are brutally burned to death allegedly
for practising black magic. INDIA TODAY Associate Editor Amarnath K.
Menon says in Despatches
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Full coverages
with columns, infographics, audio reports.
»1971:
The Untold Story
This is a story not
told in Pakistan. A secret inquiry into the splintering of Pakistan
in 1971 held army atrocities, widespread corruption, cowardice,
even loose morals, among its generals in East Pakistan as prime
reasons in losing the war. The explosive Hamoodur Rahman report,
obtained exclusively by NEWS TODAY's Samar Halarnkar, has never
seen the light of day—until now.
»
Veerappan
Strikes Again
Kannada filmdom's top
star Dr Rajkumar at his rural farmhouse was rudely interrupted when
one of India's deadliest killers, Koose Muniswamy Veerappan,50,
burst in a half hour before midnight. .
»
The
Tiger Catastrophe
India's
national animal is in crisis in the hands of its keepers. The death
toll at Nandan Kanan Zoo in Orissa is now 12, nine of these rare
white tigers.
»
The
SriLankan crisis
Exclusive interviews, columns and infographics that track the battle
for Jaffna.
» The
Kashmir jigsaw
With both the governments and militants taking strong
positions, talks on autonomy could be heading for
a major showdown.
»
The
Nepal Gameplan
'secret'
new report obtained by INDIA TODAY lays bare the ISI's infiltration
in Nepal.
|
|
|
|
