One of the defining moments in my life was when I was on deputation to Princeton University for a mid-career course. It was the height of the Vietnamese War and the United States was in ferment because many people, especially students, opposed the wa....
Archaic rules and deep divisions along political lines within the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probing the controversial 2G Spectrum sale has affected the efficacy and sanctity of parliamentary investigations. While the controversy over the co....
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China is not a democracy and there is the one party rule of the Communist Party of China (CPC). From time to time the Party holds party meetings at which matters of policy are discussed in detail. The 16th CPC Central Committee meeting wa....
The newspaper headlines and electronic media such as NDTV24×7, Times Now, CNN-IBN keeps screaming at us that India is the land of scams, the very fountainhead of corruption. On the one hand are the Indian people – harried, betrayed, looted by thos....
When India became independent the one and only national level political party was the Congress, whose identity as the party in the vanguard of the freedom movement gave it a very special place in the hearts and minds of Indians. Mahatma Gandhi was ....
Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Why does this happen? Perhaps we can find the answer in the words of Bertrand de Jouvenel, which are. “A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wo....
There is unemployment in India? There is poverty? The economy is stagnating? What is causing all this? Obviously the only villain on the scene is a gentleman called Mr. Subsidy. Because the State gives subsidies it causes the budget to imbalance, ra....
The Chambers Twenty-first Century Dictionary defines sedition in the following words: “Public speech, writing or action encouraging public disorder, especially rebellion against the government “. The word itself comes from the Latin word sedit....
Of the three pillars of the State, the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary the task of the Executive is perhaps the most arduous. The Legislature is answerable only to itself and to the electorate. The Legislature can make and break a gover....