Making a Splash:
Saraunjha's Water Babies
by Manisha Prakash 
On a hot summer day, Madhusudan Pandit, 42, a homoeopathy practitioner in Saraunjha village of Begusarai district in Bihar blows his whistle as a command to Payal, his daughter, to take another lap in the River Balan. Meet Payal Pandit, 12, a state swimming champion in the Under-19 category. As she practices her butterfly stroke, curious villagers stare at this girl, clad in a swimming costume...Read On

Race, Mendacity, Power Lust and Idiocy 
There is no such construct as race in biology despite the overwhelming obsession with it in American life and politics. A white stallion does not think of a black mare as an inferior species. Black jaguars or melanotic butterflies mingle and mate with lighter ones without reservation or discrimination. Skin color based discrimination in humans has socioeconomic and political origins. The fear of darkness...  Read on

Basis for China-Tibet Accord
by Rajinder Puri
Is there any real prospect of an amicable China-Tibet settlement? If the leaders in Beijing were a little less sensitive about saving face, and the Dalai Lama just a little more accommodating than he has already been, a settlement might be on the cards. The hurdle of full independence for Tibet has already been surmounted, thanks to the Dalai Lama's unequivocal acceptance of autonomy within China. What remains to be settled is the quantum of autonomy. Read On

Indian Communists Pursue Separate
Foreign Policy by Dr. Subhash Kapila
The hallmark of a powerful nation is bipartisan foreign policies and especially in contiguous regions where its national security interests are most at stake. In the case of India under the Congress-led Government the opposite is more seen in operation. Read On

Indians in Afghanistan – Perils of
Regional Politics by Col. Rahul K. Bhonsle 
Indian presence in Afghanistan came under pressure during April on many fronts. The first was an attack on the Indian road construction team in Nimroz province on 12 April killing two Border Roads Organization personnel, while an Indian citizen, Sarang Mohammed Naeem, working for Dubai-based HEB International Logistics was kidnapped in Herat on 21 April.  

Auspicious Signs of IPL Stirring
Community Feeling by Shylashri Shankar
Everyone agrees that the Indian Premier League (IPL) has produced a fine spectacle but disagrees on whether it is good or bad for cricket. Film star brand ambassadors like Akshay Kumar and owners like Shah Rukh Khan and Preeti Zinta, the Washington Redskin cheerleaders and others provide the glamour and glitz to the three-hour cricket spectacle staged in the arena. Will the IPL produce a Roman spectacle, a fierce locally held identity that could spark hooliganism of the European football league variety, or a more diffuse community that spurs qualities of good citizenship? Read On

Kashmir 'Packages'
–  When Will They Ever Learn?
by Ashok Jaitly   
Nothing epitomizes the quiescence of the powers that be in New Delhi towards the sensibilities of people of Jammu and Kashmir better than the cynical 'packages' handed out during every prime ministerial visit. Despite the hype created by the state's Congress-PDP government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit ... Read On

Government May Have to Pay High Price
for Rising Prices by Sushma Ramachandran
With prices rising relentlessly at the rate of over seven percent per annum, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to have been gripped with an air of quiet desperation. Read On

A Case for the Soldier by Kusum Choppra
When Morarji Desai was Prime Minister of India, he had occasion to visit the Northeast where he addressed a public meeting in Hindi. He was reported to be highly pleased with the response he got from the crowd which periodically shouted “Gumba, Gumba”, with raised fists, in response to his promises of ... and roads. Read On

A New Dawn in Nepal
by Ramesh Menon 
A couple of years ago it would have been almost unimaginable that Nepal torn by internal conflict and violence by Maoists would dump monarchy to embrace democracy. Nepal today has the distinction of being a nation that has got Maoists who rode to power not with the barrel of a gun, but with the use of  the ballot box. Read On

• The Hari Putar Dialogues – 3 
• Green Tea – The New Health Drink 
• Jhumpa Lahiri Refines her Fiction of Arrival 

Who Says Condoms Are For Men?
by Tarannum 
Even as the urban belts of India debate the use of the female condom as an effective method for family planning and prevention of HIV/AIDS, in some rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, the condoms are helping women have better control over their reproductive rights. In the nondescript town of  ...Read On

Fight that Sinking Feeling
by Barbara Lewis 
Decades after novelist Virginia Woolf and poetess Sylvia Plath made their private pain public, female depression as a literary subject matter is more in fashion than ever. In Britain where research has established women are around twice as likely as men to become depressed, a minor flurry of ...Read On