Daily Hindu Editorials

Special status for A.P. is important, but Mr. Naidu is also looking at the next election In politics, there is nothing such as friendship without benefits. Ever since it became clear that the Centre was unable to grant Andhra Pradesh “special category” status, the Telugu Desam Party was under pressure to break off ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party and make a public show of its protest. With the main opposition in the State, the YSR Congress Party, taking a belligerent stance on the issue, the TDP could not afford to give the impression that it continued to be a part of the government at the Centre without being able to wrest benefits for A.P. But even as he withdrew his ministers from the Central government, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu stopped short of leading his party out of the National Democratic Alliance headed by the BJP. The exit, when it happens, will be after another display of disaffection with the Centre’s attitude towards A.P. Clearly, the TDP is keen to demons...

The U.S. should grab North Korea’s offer of talks, and enable an environment of trust The visit by a South Korean delegation to Pyongyang and the subsequent North Korean offer to hold talks with the U.S. mark perhaps the most serious attempt in a decade to reduce tensions in the peninsula. South Korean officials who met the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said Pyongyang is willing to denuclearise if the military threat to the North is eliminated and its security guaranteed. The situation has been fraught since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President, especially after he threatened the North with “fire and fury”. As Pyongyang continued its weapons programme, Washington kept up economic pressure with biting new sanctions. But even in the face of tensions and repeated war rhetoric from both North Korea and the U.S., South Korean President Moon Jae-in kept open the diplomatic channels after assuming office last summer. This strategy appears to have yielded the current breakthrough. T...

India must seek nonaligned partnerships which can work together outside the influence of the U.S., China and Russia From all accounts, the Cold War is breaking out again. The United States has identified both China and Russia as adversaries, whose leaders, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, are strong and determined to stand up to a faltering Donald Trump, who is desperately clinging on to doctrines of ultranationalism and nuclear hegemony. The Russia dare Mr. Putin has just announced that Russia has invincible doomsday machines like an underwater drone armed with a nuclear warhead powerful enough to sweep away coastal facilities, aircraft carriers and a hypersonic vehicle impossible to intercept as it flies in a cloud of plasma “like a meteorite”. Cuba is in the dog house again and the “axis of evil” has emerged once again under Iran’s leadership. This time it is a three-cornered Cold War, without any corner having committed countries to act together as military allies. Potential a...

Even after judicial interventions against Nawaz Sharif, the PML-N looks likely to face the polls from a position of strength Shahbaz Sharif’s recent appointment as interim president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) was a landmark development that catapults the party into the campaign for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. The appointment of a new chief of the PML-N was necessitated last month when the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s removal as party chief. Irrespective of the question of judicial overreach, perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight, Nawaz Sharif should have effected the succession earlier after the court had disqualified him as Prime Minister. Battleground Punjab Going forward, the party is likely to gather strength under Shahbaz Sharif and face the forthcoming elections from a position of strength. He has been the face of the PML-N in Punjab as the Chief Minister of the province, where the party has a greater p...

Despite our differences, we are both committed to a democratic, inclusive India Rajeev Gowda Recently, the Congress’s offer to support Sitaram Yechury instead of its own candidate for election to the Rajya Sabha was spurned unwisely by the Marxists. The party offered to sacrifice its seat because Mr. Yechury is a respected parliamentarian who adds firepower to the opposition benches and an articulate voice that counters the falsehoods of the Modi sarkar. The Congress demonstrated how some sacrifices are worth making at the strategic-national level. The larger cause involves the national interest of holding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its governments accountable to the people. Thus, while analysing this question, one must look at both the strategic-national and tactical-regional perspectives. Commonalities and differences Strategically, both agree that the forces of Hindutva are opposed to the idea of a plural, inclusive India and our constitutional ideals. We differ o...