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"A reinvigorated Taliban ... is just a five-hour drive from Delhi (longer if they use the infamous BRTS)."
-Swapan Dasgupta, TOI.
MJ Akbar and Swapan Dasgupta are the two best Indian columnists of our time; I can't think of anyone else who'd write columns in newspapers as ideologically far apart as TOI and the Pioneer.
Akbar writes about the Congress' cynical calculations that India's youth will vote for Rahuul just because he's young and a pretty boy. Actually, Congressmen see him as "India's Barack Obama", that is, when they're not bestowing titles such as 'Yuvraj' on him. There's only one problem with this line of thought: Reality.
Rahuul hasn't been able to swing, let alone influence, a single state election he's campaigned in. Especially amongst the ones he bet his prestige on. Think UP and Gujarat in '07 and Karnataka last year. And after a blood-soaked year like 2008, is India's youth really dumb enough to be influenced by the parroted words of a clueless, incompetent cipher, compared to, say, Modi's spellbinding oratory? I'd like to think not. But I hope the Congress stays in denial, and if that denial gets them to do something even more stupid, such as contesting the elections outside the UPA, well, even better.
Dasgupta's Pioneer column is about an old classic that nevertheless holds relevance even today: The Congress' treatment of India's treasury as their personal election fund. To all those uninformed enough to think the NDA did the same thing when they were in power: No, they didn't. And what's really frustrating is that the Congress is willing to pour thousands of crores into a thoroughly useless scheme such as the National Rural Employment Gaurantee (Yes, it positively reeks of debunked Soviet era economics), but won't allow something as valuable as the Golden Quadrilateral project to be completed, simply because it bears Atal Behari Vajpayee's name.
On a lighter note, this joker uses his column to spout a bunch of negative figures about India. Too bad we don't have our neighbor's awesome statistics. Especially at stuff like beheading.
And finally, in the NYT, Maureen Dowd, in addition to painting a wickedly snarky picture of ex-Prez Bush wallowing in his misery, gives justified accolades to Obama for repudiating Bush's Iraq legacy so fearlessly by ordering the withdrawal of troops from there. Most importantly, she references Star Trek and Spock. A stunning redhead who writes fantastic prose and is also a nerd. Who knew such a creature existed?
-Swapan Dasgupta, TOI.
MJ Akbar and Swapan Dasgupta are the two best Indian columnists of our time; I can't think of anyone else who'd write columns in newspapers as ideologically far apart as TOI and the Pioneer.
Akbar writes about the Congress' cynical calculations that India's youth will vote for Rahuul just because he's young and a pretty boy. Actually, Congressmen see him as "India's Barack Obama", that is, when they're not bestowing titles such as 'Yuvraj' on him. There's only one problem with this line of thought: Reality.
Rahuul hasn't been able to swing, let alone influence, a single state election he's campaigned in. Especially amongst the ones he bet his prestige on. Think UP and Gujarat in '07 and Karnataka last year. And after a blood-soaked year like 2008, is India's youth really dumb enough to be influenced by the parroted words of a clueless, incompetent cipher, compared to, say, Modi's spellbinding oratory? I'd like to think not. But I hope the Congress stays in denial, and if that denial gets them to do something even more stupid, such as contesting the elections outside the UPA, well, even better.
Dasgupta's Pioneer column is about an old classic that nevertheless holds relevance even today: The Congress' treatment of India's treasury as their personal election fund. To all those uninformed enough to think the NDA did the same thing when they were in power: No, they didn't. And what's really frustrating is that the Congress is willing to pour thousands of crores into a thoroughly useless scheme such as the National Rural Employment Gaurantee (Yes, it positively reeks of debunked Soviet era economics), but won't allow something as valuable as the Golden Quadrilateral project to be completed, simply because it bears Atal Behari Vajpayee's name.
On a lighter note, this joker uses his column to spout a bunch of negative figures about India. Too bad we don't have our neighbor's awesome statistics. Especially at stuff like beheading.
And finally, in the NYT, Maureen Dowd, in addition to painting a wickedly snarky picture of ex-Prez Bush wallowing in his misery, gives justified accolades to Obama for repudiating Bush's Iraq legacy so fearlessly by ordering the withdrawal of troops from there. Most importantly, she references Star Trek and Spock. A stunning redhead who writes fantastic prose and is also a nerd. Who knew such a creature existed?
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