South Asia Citizens Web

[Magazine / The Hindu, 25 January 2009 >http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/01/25/stories/2009012550010100.htm]
Conversations about history
As the media representations of the Mumbai terror attacks demonstrated, we can’t do justice to contemporary events unless we understand our own history better. Renowned historian and winner of the prestigious Kluge Prize in 2008, Romila Thapar says heritage is too important a matter to be left to those with partisan political agendas. Excerpts from a (…)

Guns or butter? Schools or bullets? Tanks or hospitals? Gunpowder or milkpowder?

The Indian Express, 20 January 2009
Fog of war
by Vinay Sitapati
In a speech to Congress nine days after 9/11, US President George W. Bush declared “war” on terror. It seemed as innocuous a phrase then, as it is commonplace now. But re-categorising a ‘law enforcement’ problem as ‘war’ was a game-changer in two ways. First, war demands that we rally around the leader; questioning abuse of power can be unpatriotic. Second, since war is ugly business, mistakes happen. Some collateral (…)

The Guardian, 19 January 2009
Ethnic nationalism has a quasi-religious appeal, and in times of conflict the state may be treated as a god “Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.”
So wrote Lasantha Wickramatunga, in a chillingly powerful editorial published after his death. The editor of (…)

The Hindustan Times, January 21, 2009
The spectacle of the glowing endorsement by some of the India’s most successful and wealthy industrial leaders of a Chief Minister raises important, and troubling, concerns. It gets even more serious when the CM has a record of both — stimulating economic growth and fostering bitter social divisions. Then we ask: What do we expect from those who lead our country? What constitutes good and responsible government? And who are the heroes of our times? (…)