Category: Editorials

Comrade who worked out a President

  By Vijay Darda | 04-01-2016 For most Nagpurians and the rest of us in Maharashtra, from the 60s onwards Comrade Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan was a loser. He would lose election after election, but was still the CPI candidate. Yet, he is the only comrade who worked out a President of India. Roll back to the years of the first

Searching peace via Kabul and Lahore

  By Vijay Darda | 28-12-2015 For the last 68 years, dealing with Pakistan has been a major challenge for New Delhi. There is the border dispute on Kashmir, there have been four wars, and the two sides are nuclear armed nations. If these are the negatives, then the most important positive is the shared cultural history of the two

The hard work after Paris deal

  By Vijay Darda | 21-12-2015 Several years down the line, when we shall look back at the route followed by the world to fight climate change, the agreement in Paris among 196 countries would look like the easier part of the battle. The more difficult part would be implementing it. To begin with the Paris agreement has very modest

Sushmaji in Islamabad is fine, but why?

  By Vijay Darda | 14-12-2015 The good news first. Our external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has travelled to Pakistan. She is the first foreign minister from India to go to Islamabad after the long forgotten S M Krishna in September 2012. Better news still awaits us when in nine months Prime Minister Narendra Modi could well become the first

Chennai: Nature’s fury, man’s failures

  By Vijay Darda | 07-12-2015 When India’s fourth largest metropolis comes to a complete standstill – no flights, no trains, no phone services, no electricity with people dying in hospitals as the generators have stopped functioning – then you have the definition of a total collapse. When this happens for days, without any relief from the crisis as it

All of us are worried, Aamir

  By Vijay Darda | 30-11-2015 Aamir Khan is an iconic Bollywood actor. He is also well-known as thinking actor, and the entire clutch of his movies is beyond the song and dance around the trees routine. Right from his debut film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988) that got him the best male actor award to the present he has

Looking beyond oath taking at Patna

  By Vijay Darda | 23-11-2015 In true celebrations of democratic victory, oath taking ceremonies are now grand public affairs beyond the high formality of reciting vows to follow the Constitution, and discharging the responsibilities of office. Prime minister Narendra Modi sent out a clear message to all the SAARC countries that he was prepared to reach out to them.

Horrors of Paris exclude none

  By Vijay Darda | 16-12-2015 Whether it was 9/11 in America, or 26/11 in Mumbai or the latest terror incident in Paris, the fact is that such attacks target us all – in the sense of us being peace loving citizens defenceless against determined terrorists who kill indiscriminately. Political leaders the world over have called it a war, but

Nourishing his idea of India is vital for democracy

  By Vijay Darda | 14-11-2015 Remembering Panditji As the year-long 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India and rightly called the architect of our modern nation, conclude today, my mind goes back to an event that took place in the mid-fifties. At that time in 1958, Pandit Nehru had come all

Diwali: A universal celebration

  By Vijay Darda | 09-11-2015 In our every day colloquial language, when someone has a good day, we say that he is celebrating Diwali. This is true for the more fortunate sections of the society. But for the average citizen, the real time for celebration on this festival of lights is with its different elements – that of the