Why she’s here

Seminar for journalism students on adoption, I was asked to speak as an “adoptive parent”. Here’s what I said.
The first thing I should do, I think, is make a confession. I’ve been an “adoptive parent” for less than two months. So I’m hardly speaking to you from great experience. But what I’d like to do [...]

For the Benefit of Mr Fly

All over again, there’s consternation over something a soldier did during a war. This time, the Kevin Sites video showing a US Marine pumping bullets into a man lying on the ground. And all over again, I’m scratching my head in wonder. Exactly what is so surprising about this?
If there’s any lesson from war, it [...]

Double A for the patriot

One more rumination on patriotism. This one was set off by this column I read after the US election. In it, one Mike Thompson spells out a modest proposal he has. He wants to expel from the United States those systematically troublesome states that constitute a cancer that continues to threaten our body politic and [...]

It’s Mine, It’s Merry

In 1996, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, one Manohar Joshi, celebrated what he called his “greatest achievement” in his first year as CM. Yes, he used precisely those two words. After all, he was ecstatic about an addition to his CV that rapidly elevated Joshi to Minister of Heavy Industries in Prime Minister Vajpayee’s [...]

You’re Swine, I’m Fine

After the defeat of the BJP in last May’s Indian election, fans of that party wore out their fingers typing up mournful post-mortems. Nearly without exception, they had three common threads: one, these guys who won the election are scum; two, we who lost are the good guys, and good for the country; three, we [...]

Said the Thug to the Traitor

Met the New Delhi-based Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani a month ago. Gilani spent several months in Delhi’s Tihar jail in 2002, charged under the Official Secrets Act. What produced these charges is a story in itself. Benighted authorities who raided his house stumbled on documents on his PC on Indian troop deployments in Kashmir, and [...]