The sound of jackboots, Hungary style

"Prime Minister Viktor Orban is using his powers to impose a regressive agenda"

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : The sound of jackboots, Hungary style: Only eight years after ending communist rule and joining EU, Hungary, from its first avatar as the European Coal and Steel Community, is marching back to quasi-Fascism or worse, in a development of the very kind the EU was intended to prevent.

The new Hungarian constitution almost certainly breach the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and the separate European Convention on Human Rights. Yet the EU looks helpless over flagrant transgressions by a member state. Its only elected body, the European Parliament, remains deafeningly silent.

If the EU cannot deal robustly with its own errant members, then its citizens could soon hear the jackboots echoing a long way west of the Danube.

Calcutta's ambivalent inheritance

"Transforming its urban spaces requires an acknowledgement of the city's unique character and its history."

There has been very little funding from the West Bengal government — because of ideological and political reasons — for the ‘culture' for which Calcutta is still incongruously famous. And there is little from the Centre: as if Calcutta's contribution to national culture has no proven basis. To this, local intellectuals have added their earnest, often predictably academic, testimony to that culture's irrelevance. The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Calcutta's ambivalent inheritance

Why Norway should back down

"There is something deeply disturbing about the superiority and moral authority in the attitude of the country's Child Protection Services to child rearing practices of immigrants; it harks back to darker, less civil and, one would have hoped, long bygone times."

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Why Norway should back down: The ongoing case in which the Child Protection Services (CPS) in Stavanger, Norway, have placed two Indian children in a foster home raises important questions about not only the judgment of the representatives of a so-called model state, but also their lack of respect for the possibility that many questions around child care and upbringing may not have definitive answers and therefore a moral basis for passing verdicts about the right and wrong of a wide range of parenting practices.

Close encounters of the troubling kind

"Fake encounters are nothing but cold-blooded, brutal murders by persons who are supposed to uphold the law" death penalty was prescribed by Supreme Court — for involving in an act of extra-judicial killing.

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : Close encounters of the troubling kind: "As a way of dealing with the perceived pressure of public opinion following terror strikes or violent crimes, police forces across India sometimes resort to the custodial murder of prime suspects, often with a nudge and a wink from the top."


If the law does not deter criminal acts by those in authority, we are in deep trouble as a society.

Time to come out

"The Centre's embarrassing gaffe in the Supreme Court signals one thing clearly — that it will not take a clear and unambiguous position on the issue of decriminalising homosexuality. "
The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : Time to come out: The Home Ministry's clarification, which distanced itself from the retrograde and irrational positions staked out by the Additional Solicitor General who “unauthorisedly” represented it, is a classic piece of equivocation.

This fence sitting must end. The state has no right to regulate or ban love or physical intimacy between consenting adults. Why should it be so hard to say that?

A test of India's Big Power aspirations

"With the divided U.N. vote setting the stage for a deadly civil war, India must work to bring the western interventionists and BRICS nations back to the same table."

For the first time since assuming a seat at the U.N. Security Council, India showed it bore the markings of a Great Power. The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : A test of India's Big Power aspirations: Faced with a Security Council vote on Syria, India set aside its geopolitical interests, abandoned an old alliance with Bashar al-Assad and acted both on moral and tactical considerations.

Syria is headed towards civil war, thanks to a double veto by Russia and China at the U.N. The resolution's failure has pushed the Syrian crisis away from the horseshoe table, into the hands of a few nations with vested interests.

India's vision forward for Syria comprises three elements: Syrian-led transition, a complete eschewal of both externally and internally induced violence, and close co-operation with the Arab League. To prevent a free-for-all, and to resolve the crisis in an institutional setting will be Indian diplomacy's greatest challenge.

The task of bringing the Syrian brief back on the SC's agenda falls squarely on the shoulders of India and South Africa. And there can be no agreement without the support of both Russia and China. For this reason, a BRICS consensus is essential.

The pursuit of an “independent” foreign policy in yesteryears saw India shying away from pivotal issues. India's decision on Syria is commensurate with her aspirations to Great Powerdom.

Inside Balochistan's dirty war

"Baloch secessionist leader Brahmdagh Bugti says he wants political engagement with Pakistan — but that its military wants war."

In recent months, assassinations of Baloch nationalist politicians and their kin have provoked growing concern.
The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Inside Balochistan's dirty war: Baloch politicians allege the murders, were carried out by Pakistan's intelligence services to send a message the region's largest secessionist party. General Musharraf had, in fact, helped precipitate the crisis.

Pakistan's government says one thing and we say another. Ever since 2004, the government hasn't allowed a single journalist into Dera Bugti and Kohlu independently. That should tell you something about who has something to hide.

Even though the Pakistan Army was able to crush tribal rebellions espousing Baluch nationalism, new generations of urban educated Baloch were drawn to their cause.

Wilting saffron, flailing government

"In its only southern stronghold, the BJP is adrift and discredited."

With one year left for the next assembly elections, the BJP in Karnataka is adrift and discredited, its track record tainted with corruption scams, its support base dissipating, and its ideological agenda unravelling. The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Wilting saffron, flailing government: How did this happen to a "party with a difference," one that promised to make Karnataka the springboard of the BJPs expansion in the south by providing model, corruption-free governance?

Beholden to powerful factions within the party, notably the mining lobby and the land mafia, the party has never been able to seriously address its pre-poll promises to the people. To make matters worse for the scandal-ridden government, it was losing its moorings in Hindutva, further alienating it from its core support base.

Stranded between an unfulfilled mission of governance, a floundering ideological project, and the demands of its faction-ridden support base, the BJP’s Karnataka paradigm is steadily coming apart.

Taking the trauma out of tests

"If the common national examination that has been agreed upon in principle for admission to engineering courses in 2013 lives up to its promise, it will eliminate two major problems: traumatic stress for students taking multiple examinations, and high costs. "

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : Taking the trauma out of tests: The task of implementing a less expensive, academically sound and student-friendly eligibility test deserves the support of all States.

Grounding the disabled

"The case of a woman passenger with cerebral palsy rudely deplaned by SpiceJet is a terrible reminder of the distance India still needs to travel in recognising and respecting the human rights of disabled people. "

The Hindu : Opinion / Editorial : Grounding the disabled: It is time the aviation industry got its act together on sensitising its personnel about handling passengers with particular needs.

A major weakness of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, is the absence of a punitive clause. This is arguably the reason why its provisions remain poorly implemented.

India's disability law is up in the air. It is time to bring it down to earth, anchoring it firmly in the terrain of equality that our Constitution envisages for all citizens.

Resurrecting past raises questions about future

The news of Russian scientists cultivating a plant using seeds that are 30000 years old is creating new possibilities for recreating extinct flora and fauna. The editorial discusses the limitless possibilities this could lead to as well as the ethical questions this poses, along with the awkward consequences like, "Can our overcrowded planet handle the reappearance of woolly mammoths and antediluvian behemoths made to come alive from frozen tissues?"

http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/editorials/resurrecting-past-raises-questions-about-future/366403.html

Healthcare is a right government cannot ignore

The editorial takes a critical view of the planning commission picking holes in the Srinath Reddy committee report on the healthcare needs of the people. Stressing for the need of healthcare to be as much public controlled as possible, the editorial notes that scams in ill-conceived projects like NHRM cannot be held as a reason for privatizing health sector, which doesn't happen even in many developed countries.
http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/editorials/healthcare-is-a-right-government-cannot-ignore/366402.html

Public money is not to save private ventures

The editorial asks the government to take a tough stand on the Kingfisher airline debacle.
http://expressbuzz.com/opinion/editorials/public-money-is-not-to-save-private-ventures/366010.html
Pointing out to the operational troubles of Kingfisher the editorial notes, "Having cheated fliers by its unscheduled cancellation of flights and defrauded the government by deducting tax from its employees and not depositing it with authorities, the airlines has lost all ground for sympathetic consideration of its current plight."

And concludes with a simple summary of the perspective government should take, "It is not the job of a government to bail out private enterprises and their survival should be left to market forces. Since they do not share profits with the government there is no justification for wasting public money to enable them to cover their losses."

Capital gains, everyone else loses

"In the Vodafone case, the Supreme Court has again made a wrong call on tax avoidance, setting a precedent that jeopardises thousands of crores of potential revenue for the exchequer."

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Capital gains, everyone else loses: Tax avoidance through artificial devices — holding companies, subsidiaries, treaty shopping and selling valuable properties indirectly by entering into a maze of framework agreements — has become a very lucrative industry today. A large part of the income of the ‘Big 5' accountancy and consultancy firms derives from tax avoidance schemes which flourish in the name of tax planning.

Many foreign institutional investors (FII) avoided paying taxes citing the Double Taxation Treaty with Mauritius. This treaty says a company will be taxed only in the country where it is domiciled. All these FIIs, though based in other countries and operating exclusively in India, claimed Mauritian domicile by virtue of being registered there under the Mauritius Offshore Business Activities Act (MOBA). Since there was no capital gains tax in Mauritius, most FIIs and most of the foreign investment in India, by 2000, came to be routed through Mauritius.

High Court rejected Vodafone's contention that the transaction with Hutchinson was not liable to tax. But in appeal, a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice accepted Vodafone's claim. With such welcoming winks towards tax avoidance devices, it is unlikely that any foreign company would be called upon to pay tax or at least capital gains tax in future in India. Thousands of crores of tax revenue, and the future attitude of the courts towards innovative tax avoidance devices, will be shaped by these two judgments.

Our courts must send a clear signal that India is not a banana republic where foreign companies can be invited to loot our resources and even avoid paying taxes on their windfall gains from the sale of those resources.

Italy is wrong on sea law

"The shooting of Indian fishermen by Italian marines aboard the Enrica Lexie brings to the fore the need to understand the Law of the Sea as understood by seafaring nations"

The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Italy is wrong on sea law: The United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as quoted by the Italian authorities, to is taken out of context. So neither article 97 or Annexure III is relevant to this case.This case definitely does not come under any of the provisions of UNCLOS or any other convention connected with international piracy.

Killing someone is a crime; the accused has to face charges. But how and where must be decided by the authorities keeping in view diplomatic conditions.