The North Eastern Indian state of Manipur is ruled more like an Indian colony than a state with widespread human rights violations, the Kolkata US Consul General Henry V Jardine wrote after a visit of the state in September, 2006. Jardine, who was on a security-checking mission in the trouble-prone state, gave a stark, if […]
The World will spend a whopping $29.4 billion (Rs 1.35 lakh crore) this year on media tablets, a market where Apple had almost 90% marketshare last year, according to Gartner research agency. The number is three times the equivalent figure for 2010, the researcher said in its latest prediction. Gartner had earlier predicted tough times […]
The Mumbai Consultate and New Delhi embassy of the US Government were extremely concerned at the use of an ‘American’ hotel in Dubai for the “brazen” wedding of Dawood Ibrahim in late 2005. The US officials in India asked for action against the US-based Hyatt group for letting the wedding take place at the hotel […]
Concerned over India’s galloping electronics import bill, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will recommend a phased introduction of ‘local sourcing’ rules of telecom operators in a week. The TRAI chairman JS Sarma said most of the final details on the recommendations, has been arrived at and the recommendations will be put out next week. […]
The lot of Dalits is unlikely to improve drastically under the UPA government as the alliance is dominated by upper caste Hindus, who don’t always care about the poorer sections, the then US Ambassador to India, David Mulford wrote in 2005. “While the UPA has focused on bettering the lot of the dalit community, it […]
In 2005 immediately after his visit to Pakistan Senior Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader,Lal Krishna Advani’s was on the verge of being sidelined,actually he was pushed to the corner. The reason was his charitable remarks on Jinnah in which he described him a secular leader. The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh(RSS),the parent organization of the BJP, reacted […]
Naxalism in India is unlikely to abate any time soon because the Indian government is not willing to take the tough steps to address the concerns of the poor and the marginalized, wrote the then US ambassador David Mulford in a 2005 cable released by Wikileaks. “Indian economic development has missed large portions of the […]
Novelist,Anuja Chauhan, of ‘The Zoya Factor’ fame is going to be a script writer. Taking a predictable route that most of the writers of non serious faction takes the dashing author of two novels will be writing a script for Nikhil Advani’s next film, ‘Guppie-Mein Liar Nahih Shayer Hoon’. ‘Guppie…’,a love story,will hit the floor […]
Having upgraded its urban network to high-speed CDMA, Reliance Communications today announced it is drastically cutting the tariffs in non-urban areas — which are still on the older CDMA technology. In such places, consumers can have unlimited internet access for just Rs 169 per month, about one tenth of the rate that existed before today. […]
India’s trade deficit for the first eleven months fell to $ 97.1 billion from $100.2 billion registered during the same period a year ago, thanks to booming exports and a dip in oil imports. India’s exports continued their outstanding performance in February, rising 50% during the month. During January too, exports were up by more […]
After Raja and ISRO, the Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) has chosen a much more glamorous victim for its latest enquiry. According to the audit report released today, most Indian film personalities and producers are less than completely truthful when it comes to declaring their income and paying tax. The CAG came to […]
The state of Bihar as emerged as the state with the most ‘out of control’ population growth, according to the Census 2011. It also reaffirmed its place as the state with the worst socio-economic indicators in India. According to the census, not only does Bihar have the fastest growing population of all the states in […]
Yet another Wikileaks cable focusing on the personality of Rahul Gandhi has the potential to stir trouble for the grand old party of India. Showing the distance traveled by Rahul Gandhi in five years, the cable expressed widespread disappointment at the young Gandhi’s political and social skills in 2005. Known to be an introvert, the […]
The full text of the Wikileaks cable talking about Rahul Gandhi’s initial hiccups 1. (C) Summary: Rahul Gandhi, the heir apparent of the Gandhi family dynasty, has made a number of gaffes, suggesting an uneven start to his active political career. During a series of “”roadshows”” meant to jump-start the Congress campaign in ongoing Uttar […]
If you can count then count this number -1,210,193,422.Staggering by any standard. This mind boggling figure is India’s population strength in 2011. 1.21 billion is the provisional population data released by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India. That means 181 million more people on earth or one more Brazil in the planet. This […]
The US ambassador David Mulford criticised the Congress government for making its bureaucracy more “difficult to deal with” than it was during the Vajpayee years. Mulford, who felt that “the Nehru dynasty needs to become more like the Tata dynasty,” criticised Manmohan government’s “Brezhnev-era controls on its people of which Indira Gandhi would have approved.” […]
The Congress Party’s swerve towards populism, as exemplified its ‘aam admi’ campaign and a flurry of schemes such as the 100-day employment guarantee scheme paradoxically owe its origin to the BJP’s own failures, Goeffrey Pyatt, the in-charge at the US embassy in Delhi pointed out in 2006. Pyatt was quick to spot the decisive move […]
Senior Congress leader and Information & Broadcasting minister Ambika Soni has defended her appointment of Bharatnatyam dancer Leela Samson to chair the Censor Board. Soni said she wanted someone who would not have any “conflict of interest” in the position and would be free to cut out any offending bits from the movies. “During my […]
Watch out of Pranab Mukherjee’s Bengali accent — this was the warning from the US embassy Delhi to their headquarters in Washington just before the then defence minister was to visit the country. The detailed biography of Pranab Mukherjee, India’s current finance minister, also reveals the man behind the persona and comments on his tiff […]
Full text of Ambassador David Mulford’s 2005 cable on the ‘Congress Culture’ SUBJECT: CONGRESS CULTURE DEFINES SONIA GANDHI’S ROLE Classified By: DCM Robert O. Blake, Jr. for Reasons 1.4 (B, D) 1.(C) Summary: Since the Congress-dominated government has been in power, there have been widespread allegations by the opposition BJP and media commentators that party […]
