  On the Spot - Tavleen Singh |  |
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 Need for a friendly rashtrapati |
| The President’s role in the 2009 election will be an extremely important one if the political landscape remains as it is today. In such a situation a President who goes by the book as Dr. Abdul Kalam has been inclined to becomes inconvenient |
| Indian economy in dilemma! |
| The aim is electing governments that work. This is no longer happening in India for various reasons of which the most important is that the wrong kind of people are getting elected |
| National shame |
| We need to thank the Supreme Court for saying what the Prime Minister should have said on the first day of the Gurjar violence |
| Between The Lines - Kuldip Nayar | |
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| Will Bangladesh go the Pakistan way? |
| Whatever the fears, the people in Bangladesh have welcomed the
army action without reservation. They were so sick of the misrule and corruption by former Prime Ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina |
| Ominous caste clashes |
| The Gujjar-Meena confrontation has raised a larger question. A country that promised to establish a casteless society at the time of independence is faced with the piquant situation where a community agitates for caste status |
| Ayub’s obiter dicta |
| General Ayub suspected the bonafides of Hindus and did not think them possessing any worthwhile quality. As for Bhutto, Ayub ran him down all the time |
| Round Up - A.R.Kanangi | |
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| Toilet at CST: heritage sight! |
| It is just hilarious that an old, dilapidated, stinking toilet figures in a heritage list. Thousands of people will thank the BMC if this structure is pulled down and in its place, a two or three floor modern toilet is built |
| Pro-Congress President |
| Can a President remain impartial and never take sides? If the nominee of the Congress party becomes the President, will she stay above party and power politics? And will she ever be able to say no if she is convinced that an advice of the Council of Ministers is wrong? |
| Mumbai: Neither clean nor green |
| A plan to implement a most important, urgent, basic human need — to answer nature’s call — finds no place in the BMC budget. It has grandiose — and some hilarious schemes which may not make any impact on the city. Mumbai is neither clean nor green — Mumbai stinks |
| Malice - Kushwant Singh | |
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| Bandhs as blackmail |
| Did they realise what the consequences of paralysing the administrative hub of the country could lead to? No. They don’t believe in thinking; nor bother about legalities or cost to the country |
| Wherefrom? Why? Whereto? |
| About life after death, author Parthasarathy juggles with words that leave us utterly confused because he hesitates to say that he believes in re-incarnation and his scriptures say so |
| Mayawati phenomena |
| She stumbled on the right formula to gain political power. Her victory should be a lesson to all other parties |
| Inside Story - Virendra Kapoor | |
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| KPS Gill no longer in Chattisgarh |
| Gill might have successfully led the fight against the Khalistani challenge in Punjab, but in taming the Naxalite terror in Chattisgarh he did not make any headway |
| Rajnath Singh takes down the BJP with him |
| His lack of self-confidence and his style of functioning is a drag on BJP |
| Penny wise, pound foolish |
| There has been no concerted effort whatsoever to prevent the leakage of thousands of crores of rupees annually from huge outlays on several social, health and educational schemes. Nor has there been an attempt made to prevent the theft of subsidized commodities, including food grains, kerosene oil etc, from the country-wide
public distribution network |
| Media Watch - M.V. Kamath | |
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| When too much is expected of the media |
| There is no such thing as an ‘ideal’ newspaper though there are quite a few ‘good’ papers which provide a large variety of news |
| A strange argument |
| The tragedy is that the media wants to get away with half-truths |
| An editor’s daughter in the news |
| Here is an Indian girl of outstanding merit who had outshone all her 250 odd classmates; should that story be thrown into the waste paper basket merely because she happened to be the boss’s daughter? |
, Bombay - India