The Janata government could not have been more inept in its handling of the anti-defection bill. While it had doubtless consulted opposition leaders on the broad principles underlying the measure, it had not at any time made the text available to them. As such, it was not entitled to claim, … Read More
In his statement on the question of the influx of refugees from Bangladesh into north-east India in the Rajya Sabha last Monday, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee has taken a far more optimistic view of the situation than MPs from the region. He has said that 2,191 out of 4,000 refugees … Read More
There will be widespread relief in the country over the resolution, however temporary, of the crisis that has rocked the Janata since April 28 when Mr. Charan Singh resigned from the party’s national executive and parliamentary board. The credit for it must go not only to the mediators who persevered … Read More
Sheikh Abdullah has done well to take the country into confidence and let it know that infiltration has taken place into Jammu and Kashmir from across the line of actual control. As is only to be expected in such cases, he has neither disclosed the magnitude of the problem nor … Read More
No one in India can be surprised by the general tenor either of Mrs. Gandhi’s speech in Delhi on the occasion of the so-called “Save India” day last Wednesday or of the memorandum to the President of the Republic which was released to the press the same day. Both are … Read More
It is difficult to disagree with the Prime Minister on some of the points he has made in his reply to a discussion on the question of nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes in the Lok Sabha last Wednesday. It just cannot be denied that Mrs. Gandhi was guided at least … Read More
There is not the slightest justification for the “Save India” agitation Mrs. Gandhi has decided to launch on August 9 a la Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement 36 years earlier. The Janata government has done nothing in recent months which can lend credence to the charge that it has bartered … Read More
It is understandable that despite Mr. Morarji Desai’s strong objection, the executive of the Janata parliamentary party has once again decided to postpone the election of a new committee. Whatever the result, a trial of strength among the JPP constituents at this stage would have complicated the task of men … Read More
The central committee of the CPM is quite justified in taking the view that the earlier criticism of the emergency and Mrs. Gandhi by the CPI is “now muted”. But that is only a harsh way of saying that, unlike it, the CPI has not settled for Mrs Gandhi being … Read More
It is as easy to praise Mr. Sharad Pawar and his supporters as to condemn them. But neither would be in order, the first because they have defied the party leadership and failed to provide for their actions an explanation which is consistent with established norms of political behavior, and … Read More
