Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee extended a hand of partnership to the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) to push through financial reforms. Mukherjee, who was addressing industry concerns over flailing pace of economic reforms, after the budget, said he is willing to meet other parties and governments “halfway.” “It is not that we have back-tracked on […]
The following is the full text of Arvind Kejriwal’s letter to the followers of India Against Corruption and Anna Hazare in which he tries to answer those who have opposed Anna’s move to enter the political arena. Dear friends, There are mixed reactions at the end of Anshan. The general populace has welcomed our initiative […]
A 2009 US diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks has exposed how Pakistani leaders had to practically beg the US ambassador for money to carry out basic functions such as providing education and drinking water to its people last year. The cable written by US ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson shows Pakistani finance minister Shaukat Tarin […]
Anna Hazare’s broad-based anti-corruption alliance ‘India Against Corruption’ seems all set to form a new political party after Anna’s supporters voted overwhelmingly in favor of the option, according to initial trends. Anna Hazare himself said he was in agreement with the requests of his followers. “I will not be part of any party, but I […]
Finally, the numbers from the crucial Neyyatinkara bypoll are in and both the Congress and BJP have reason to smile, while the Left parties are reeling from the shock. Neyyattinkara bypoll was crucial as a Left win there would have reduced the Congress-led UDF government’s majority in the state assembly to just 1 member and […]
Pranab Mukherjee may have just been chosen as UPA’s candidate for the Indian Presidency, but his ambition and rise was noted very early on by American diplomats in India. A cable, released by Wikileaks, from the American Ambassador to India David Mulford in June 2005 to the then U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has an […]
Indian enterprise IT spending across all industry markets is forecast to reach Rs 1,910 billion (Rs 1.91 lakh crore or $37 billion) this year, a 16.4 percent jump from last year rupee terms. The growth will be less in dollar terms due to the 15-20% fall in rupee value this year, compared to the last. […]
India Against Corruption, the rainbow coalition of activists headed by Anna Hazare, has accused all political parties of planning to pass a toothless Lokpal bill, and promised to launch an even bigger campaign against any such move. Last year, Hazare had organized the biggest political protests in India since the JP Movement of the 70s, […]
Narendra Modi, the icon of the Hindu right wing, may have lost the popular vote on Time magazine’s top 100 poll this year, but he is the owner of a distinction none of the others, including the winner, has. Modi drew the largest number of votes of any person on the list, leaving people like […]
Former railway minister Dinesh Trivedi seems set on his way to becoming a new middle class hero. The minister, who was unceremoniously ejected from the Union Cabinet as a result of a political and ego tussle between the Congress party and its ally Mamata Banerjee, will deliver a lecture on “Country, Before Party and Self” […]
Open Magazine, edited by Manu Joseph, has responded to allegations of bias and falsifications from Team Anna by coming out with a clarification of its own. India Against Corruption (IAC), the coalition of activists led by Anna Hazare that organized the Jan Lokpal bill agitation last year, had come out with a press statement attacking […]
Nasscom, India’s national association of IT and BPO companies, has expressed worry over what it sees efforts to tap anti-outsourcing sentiment ahead of the US Presidential election next year. Nasscom’s comments came in the context of a bill in the US House of Representatives that seeks to make it mandatory for call centre employees to […]
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari tried to extract financial concessions from the US in exchange for talking with India, according to a US diplomatic cable dating to February last year and leaked by Wikileaks. When the US pressed him to hold talks with India, Zardari said his personal position has to be shored up through […]
Even as rumors fly of a meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Taliban leaders during the former’s visit to Saudi Arabia last month, a Wikileaks cable has revealed that the Saudis were initially against such a meeting. The cable, dating back to February last year and sent from the Islamabad embassy of the United […]
Former Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan, who has a reputation as one of the least corrupt politicians in the country, had warned the US government against the Pakistani government’s exaggeration of the terror threat and “stage management” of attacks to fleece money from it. In a meeting with a delegation of the US Congress Representatives led […]
India’s manufacturing technology for fighter jets, helicopters and planes is “decades” behind those of the West, but it has made “remarkable progress” in the last few years, the then American ambassador to India Timothy Roemer wrote after a tour of India’s biggest plane factory in Bangalore last year. Roemer saw models and under-constructions fighter helicopters […]
Bangladesh’s attitude towards terrorists underwent a sea-change after the Mumbai attacks, according to the evidences of the US diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks. While India had to bear with a poisonous neighbour from where terrorists could walk into India almost at will for several years, after the election of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League into power […]
The Chinese are pouring in massive amounts of money into the Tibetan region and creating huge infrastructure, some of which may be militarily used against India, noted David Brown, the US Consul General for Chengdu according to a cable released by Wikileaks. The official was describing the massive ‘overinvestment’ he saw in the Tibetan town […]
However much American leaders may praise India as the World’s “largest” democracy, a 2006 diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks reveals that they were under no illusions about the state of governance in India. The then US ambassador to India felt that the emergence of a separate ‘corruption economy’ and ‘corruption elite’ and that the Congress […]
