ARTICLES/OPINION

As I write, Dalbir Kaur is appearing before the television cameras, to plead with the government of Pakistan for the life of her brother, Sarabjit Singh. The family -- Dalbir Kaur and her husband, Baldev Singh, Sarabjit Singh's wife, Sukhpreet Kaur, and their daughters, Swapandeep and Poonam -- say that Sarabjit Singh was nothing more than a farmer who wandered across the border while he was drunk; the Pakistani authorities insist that he is a terrorist. Whatever the truth of the case, what strikes me is not what Dalbir Kaur is saying as where she is saying it from, in Lahore [Images], not far from the gates of the Kot Lakhpat Jail, where her brother currently sits behind bars. It is difficult enough for someone to get to meet a condemned prisoner in India, it must be a magnitude of order tougher to obtain permission from a foreign country. .... read more

During last winter's Assembly election in Gujarat, the 'secularists', while demonising Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, sniggered at his claim that the State's development is the best in the country. Union Ministers like Mr Kapil Sibal were at pains to pick holes in his statistics. But the people stood like a rock behind Mr Modi and he was retuned to power with a solid majority. Now, in these times of crushing inflation, skyrocketing food prices and global decline in agricultural production, comes the report that Gujarat has achieved 33 per cent increase in wheat production during the rabi season. The State's wheat acreage has gone up from 6.64 hectares in 2005 to 13.93 lakh hectares in December 2007. Production has gone up from 27 lakh tonnes to 37 lakh tones in just one year. This when the countrywide increase in wheat output is stated to be only marginally higher while global wheat production has declined substantially. At least Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram should congratulate Mr Modi for helping out at this critical juncture. .... read more

Earlier, people used to be tolerant towards corruption. Then they got accustomed to it. Today, corruption has become a way of life. Those who are not corrupt face numerous difficulties. Earlier, people used to be tolerant towards corruption. Then they got accustomed to it. Today, corruption has become a way of life. Those who are not corrupt face numerous difficulties. Up to the 1960s, corruption was negligible but after Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister, especially in the 1970s when Gundu Rao, Bhajan Lal, Jagannath Mishra and the ilk had to pay a certain amount to Indira Gandhi every month, they justified corruption by telling officers that as they have to pay Delhi so they have to collect by hook or by crook. .... read more

'Guru, nothing is going wrong. And nothing is going right. Life is boring.' This is how Ramnath Goenka, the founder of the Indian Express group, used to lament in the mid 1980s when there was very little political activity in the country with Rajiv Gandhi in power with an unprecedented three fourths majority in Lok Sabha. Ramnath Goenka, the man who, for four decades, monopolised the precept and practice of freedom of the press in free India, hated inactivity. That is why life seemed boring to him even if everything was going okay. To him there was no life is good life and good living. Life meant in his dictionary life full of activity, of challenges and tussles. That was why he found life meaningless when nothing was happening. Something must keep happening, even if it were not to his liking. .... read more