Trump's call to Sharif doesn't indicate any real change to US foreign policy with India

It will take roughly a year to know the true direction of the incoming Trump Administration in the United States.The phone calls and conversations that are making waves today - with Nawaz Sharif and Tsai Ingwen - are no indicator of which way the US will go under his presidency. 

The policy will only assume shape after Cabinet appointees have gone through their confirmation hearings and sub-cabinet officials selected and appointed.Given that some choices could be controversial, the confirmation process may prove to be long and arduous.

Strategy

Donald J Trump never really expected to win the election and had not done the elaborate preparation for taking up the job like his rival Hillary Clinton.

In any case, a Clinton administration would have appointed a large number of Obama officials who are currently in a state of shock because none of them expected to be out of a job so soon.

The special thing about foreign policy is that there are only some variables you can control. No matter how powerful or determined a US President, his policy still depends on developments abroad, as well as the actions of other countries, some friends and others rivals.

There is likely to be little change in American grand strategy which has sought to ensure that no regional hegemon (supreme leader) arises in Europe, Persian Gulf and East Asia.

The thing about foreign policy is that there are only some variables you can control. No matter how powerful or determined a US President, his policy still depends on developments abroad.

To this end, leading the alliance in Europe is important, just as it is to prevent the rise of Iran in the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia simply lacks the population base to be a regional hegemon of any kind. 

Russia’s resurgence is really a defensive reflex and not a bid to restore the glory of the erstwhile Soviet Union.

The real challenge is in East Asia where China is determined to challenge the American sway and has successfully breached the ASEAN.

Critics of Obama say that the eight years of his presidency have featured inaction, inattention and withdrawal from global affairs.

While the decision to pull out from Iraq was understandable, the speed of the withdrawal from Afghanistan has had widespread repercussions.

Likewise it would have been foolish of the Americans to go in too deep into European ventures like Libya and Syria, but its own pivot to Asia proved to be anemic.

Obama did little to check Russia and instead reached out to make peace with Iran and Cuba.

The emergence of Francois Fillon as the centre-right candidate for next year’s presidential elections in France, combined with the inclination of the US President- elect to make a deal with Russia could upend the verities of the Obama era which had sought to cordon Russia from Europe through economic sanctions.

Outreach

A US-Europe-Russia deal has vast implications. It will almost certainly involve handing over Syrian affairs to them, in exchange for Moscow backing off in Ukraine in exchange for the Americans acquiescing in the occupation of Crimea and lifting the sanctions.

NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia would be checked and the US would permit Assad to regain control of Syria with the commitment of fighting the ISIS. People who complain about the amorality of all this forget that the US and China were supported the Pol Pot regime because of their antipathy for Vietnam.

This is what big power politics is all about. The outreach to Russia could have another important result - the pullback of the Russia drift towards a proto-alliance with China.

This will have important implications for the One Belt One Road project, as well as Chinese military modernization, which still relies on Russia for crucial elements such as jet engines and high quality air defence systems.

Fallout

The one area which remains an unknown is Iran. Conservative elements close to Trump have a deep antipathy to Iran and Cuba. In the case of Cuba, it is motivated by Cuban exiles that have deep roots in the conservative establishment.

In the case of Tehran a great deal of it arises from Israel and its powerful American supporters who view the current regime as an existential threat.

However, the US knows that any going back on the nuclear deal could have serious consequences, notably a breakdown of the big-power consensus that led to the Iran nuclear agreement.The US would find it difficult, if not impossible, to resume the economic sanctions that had, to an extend, brought Iran around.

There could be a negative fallout for India as well. Our big geopolitical riposte to the OBOR—the Chah Bahar project could come undone.

In addition, our energy security could be affected in view of our huge purchases of Iranian oil. New Delhi would have to make choices here and they are not likely to be simple.

Not going with the Americans could have repercussions elsewhere, while tailing them could seriously damage our standing in a region which is vital to our security. But again, making choices and shaping policies is what big power politics is all about.  

Mail Today December 4, 2017

All eyes on Donald Trump's America

Halifax, a major port in the east coast of Canada, has hosted an annual security forum for the past nine years. This year, the event was held a week after the US Presidential elections that delivered a stunning verdict in favour of Donald Trump.
Since most of those who attend the forum are people who deal with security issues — officials current and retired, policy wonks, media commentators, military officers —the subject of almost every discussion was the forthcoming Trump presidency, and in view of his positions, the future of NATO, Canadian-American relations, and the role of Russia.
Uniquely, the Halifax Forum hosts only people from democracies around the world, principally the Atlantic region, but also Japan and other parts of the world. The presence of a strong bipartisan US delegation — comprising of luminaries like Senator John McCain, the losing Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine, Senators Dan Sullivan and Jeanne Shaheen, PACOM chief Admiral Harry Harris, the controversial head of the National Security Agency, Admiral Mike Rogers — provided the backdrop to the discussions.
In the fabled American policy community — the Beltway elite of Washington DC — as it were, there is a sense of alarm, and even panic at what the Trump presidency would be like. Some measure of it comes from the fact that many of them opposed Trump, and some from the fact that they may have lost possible appointments in the incoming administration. But it is couched in laments about the coming collapse of the liberal order.
Discussion focused on a range of issues such as the future of democracy to whether Trump’s attack on alliance partners for ‘free loading’ and his relationship with Vladimir Putin presaged a new and difficult era for the US-led alliance system in the Pacific and the Atlantic. Many issues were posed as questions: Will Trump make a deal with Russia, getting it to back off in Ukraine in exchange for giving it a free hand in Syria? Would the Americans walk away from the Asia Pacific and Atlantic alliances? What would happen to the world order and rules based international system that the US had created and led for 70 years?
The message from the top American interlocutors was that as of now, the US was firmly committed to the alliances and that the reality of office would push Trump back to the centre of the political spectrum. Analysts offered a range of reasons why things may not change that much: US has enduring interests which will not change. If Trump deviated from fostering them, he would be brought to heel very soon by the US Congress and the people. Other Presidents, too, speakers recalled, took radical postures before they assumed office, but moderated their stance thereafter.
But that almost appeared to be more by way of wishful thinking. The appointment of outliers like Lt Gen Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Mike Pompeo as CIA chief, and Stephen Bannon as the chief strategist, signal that Trump aims to do what he said he would do.
Host Canada expressed its worries about the upending of the deep security and economic links between the two countries. An aggressive protectionist approach of the Trump administration could target some key Canadian exports like softwood, lumber and livestock. The US would seek tighter IPR rules which would affect not just Canada, but countries like India as well. Canadians haven’t forgotten that the US actually shut its borders with Canada in the wake of 9/11, signalling that when it came to security, homeland US came first. Till then, many Canadians had believed that North American security was integrated.
Among those eagerly watching the situation are the Japanese. They are heartened by the recent meeting between the US President-elect and the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Trump’s attitude towards America’s foreign commitments will have a major impact on Japan. He has given confusing signals, alternately calling for the US to pull out from its Japanese and Korean commitments, to suggesting — and then denying that he did so — that Japan and South Korea ought to develop their own nuclear weapons. The details of the Abe-Trump meeting are not known and, as for South Korea, it has been reassured by the NSA-designate Gen Flynn that the US valued its alliance with them and remained committed to dealing with North Korean nuclear weapons.
But so far, there has been little on the European and North American front. No senior leader or delegation has met Trump and the President-elect remains silent on the issues that the Europeans fret about. Any radical shift of policy here could actually upend the world order as we know it, considering that it is the America-Western Europe combine which has had preponderant economic and political clout to enforce it.
As for other regions like South Asia, ASEAN, West Asia or Africa, there is little talk. Trump appears to be unfamiliar of the world outside his own country, Europe and Japan. Perhaps it is all for the good.
Mid Day November 22, 2016

Surely Parrikar doesn't believe there's a link between J&K 'peace' and demonitisation?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called him the brightest jewel of his court.But for us columnists, Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar's greatest value is that he regularly provides us with fodder for our copy.

And so it is with his latest comment that demonitisation has led to a reduction of stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir.

There are two problems with this.

First, it is not factually correct. J&K government figures show that stone pelting incidents had been declining month on month since their height of 820 incidents in July; in August they came down to 747, in September to 119, 157 in October; and this month till November 14 there were 49 incidents, with 15 of them taking place between November 8 when demonitisation was announced.

Flaws in theory

The second is the flawed effort to put 'stone pelting' and 'terrorism' in the same box. 

By doing so, the government of India mixes apples and oranges and this has consequnces for its policy, or the lack of it, in J&K.

If Parrikar and the government think that the youngsters who come out to throw stones because they are paid in Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, they are deluding themselves.

Consigning all protest and militancy in J&K to someone paying people to do something just does not fit with the facts on ground.

The same problem arises with militant attacks and terrorism. There have been several incidents after the Uri attack, but none of them were such that would have required some huge outlay of money to execute.

For example, the Al Qaeda raised hundreds of thousands of dollars because they had to send the 20-odd terrorists to live and train in the US to carry out the infamous 9/11 attack.

There is already an existing infrastructure of militants in the Valley, they are now not too many in numbers, but they are there and armed.

In the main, their strikes are against unarmed or poorly armed J&K police personnel. The attacks are so few that correlating them with demonitisation would be a tricky exercise.

Electoral dividends

There is one set of 'anti-nationals' who will be affected by the demonetisation. But Parrikar and co are not so bothered about them since attacking them will not give then the electoral dividends they seek by attacking Kashmiri militants and Pakistan.These are the Maoists of Central India, who have a core of 10,000 fighters with some 15,000-20,000 full-time supporters and a larger number of overground workers. 

These people have depended on money derived from extorting traders and mining companies to function.For obvious reasons, they hold their money in cash and they are the people who will now find it difficult to function.

They operate over a large area, have to buy food, medicine, weapons and equipment.

Besides, their overground workers have to be regularly paid. Almost in all such movements, be it the Chinese Communists in the 1920s and 1930s, or the Taliban of today, money has been a deciding factor in their success.

In the case of the Taliban, a great deal of it has been gathered through the drug trade, though Arab and ISI donations have been important. In the case of the CPC, without the support of the Soviet Union's money, often provided through Comintern agents, it is doubtful that they could have escaped Chiang Kai Shek's encirclement campaigns and made their famous Long March.

Red herring

Coming back to Kashmir, it is true that hawala money has played a role in the Kashmir uprising, but in the past.

Today that movement is a shadow of its past self. This was in the main in relation to the active militant groups like the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Pakistani groups.

When they operated in significant numbers in the Valley, they needed money to move around, as well as for living expenses for themselves and their families.

The Lashkar-e-Tayyeba even now regularly pays stipends to its militants and their families, especially if they die in action.Kashmiri political parties also need money, just like other parties in India. But many of them have built properties and markets and probably have enough 'legitimate' assets to keep them afloat.However, to extrapolate this to the so-called stone pelters would be an error.

Most of these are kids who live with their families and they throw stones because they are frustrated by the circumstances they are living in and are easily manipulated by their more savvy leaders.

It is important to, therefore, analyse the declining trend of stone pelting in an accurate fashion.Introducing redherrings like demonetisation will only serve to prevent the government from formulating policies that could help restore normality in the state.

Mail Today 20 Novmber 2016

Apprehensive World Leaders Need Not Worry Yet, the US’s Peculiar Political System Will Keep Trump in Check

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election has upended the conventional wisdom about political mobilisation and polling processes  in the country. It also threatens to upset the very world order that the US built, nurtured and currently dominates. The first question that comes to mind for other nations observing the outcome is: What are going to be the consequences of a Trump presidency ?
In many ways, they will be internal. In achieving his stunning upset, Trump first trampled on the Republican establishment’s leadership –House speaker Paul D. Ryan, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich – and then took on a formidable Democratic candidate and bested her. Former President George W. Bush and 2012 presidential contender Mitt Romney refused to support Trump. Analysts will be working hard to decode his victory for a while, but the heart of his win lay in winning the key rust-belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa which used to be the industrial heartland of the US and were won by outgoing US President Barack Obama in the 2012 elections.
Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan resonated well with the working-class Americans who felt that ‘foreigners’ (read non-white people) were taking away their jobs and those who had grown disillusioned watching as the rich became richer and the middle class stagnated and America’s infrastructure crumbled, even as the country spent trillions of dollars in wars abroad. Trump’s resilience became apparent as he overcame negative ads, put out by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, depicting Trump as an unhinged, racist misogynist. In some ways he turned Obama’s strategy inside out by  positioning himself as the candidate of hope and an outsider battling the elite Washington DC establishment.
Trump disdained the orthodox approach to election organisation by focusing on holding large rallies instead of concentrating on analytics. He left the Republican Party organisation to run its own campaign and turned the conventional political style of contesting US elections upside down by rejecting the high road and taking the low one of outrageous remarks against Mexicans, women and Muslims. And in the process consolidated his appeal among blue-collar white Americans.
In some ways,  the US election represents a nationalist wave that is also rocking Europe and led to Brexit earlier this year. It has been successfully used by politicians as diverse as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Shinzu Abe and Narendra Modi to consolidate power.
Like all nationalists, Trump was propelled to power because he was seen as the best person to address the electorate’s feelings of helplessness and insecurity.
America’s peculiar political system
Across the world, people are experiencing disbelief and a touch of apprehension at Trump being elected the US president. But we need to understand that now that he is president, America’s peculiar political system – designed by its founding fathers to prevent Trump-like populists – will kick into action. The system is based on a separation of powers which provides for checks and balances against arbitrarily instituted policies. The US president is only the first among equals when it comes to the US parliament (aka Congress) – the Senate and House of Representatives which comprise the Congress are also vested with significant power. Having stepped on many a toe in the run-up to his election, Trump may find that the Congress may not readily do his bidding, even though many of the Republican Senate and House members have come to power riding on his coattails. The US system has been deliberately designed to slow down someone like Trump and it will surely succeed at doing so if Trump seeks to upend established treaties and agreements and strike out in unexpected directions.

Trade and immigration
There are two key issues that have marked Trump’s rise – trade and immigration. Clearly the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is now dead in the water and with it goes the grand American strategy of confronting China on the trade front. Countries like Mexico are, of course, worried about the future of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But one thing is clear, the US stands to lose as much, if not more, by scrapping existing treaties than its interlocutors.
As for immigration, it will affect all countries, but some like India probably don’t have cause to worry because traditionally Indian migrants are highly educated and the demand for them is high in the US. It is the migrants from neighbouring countries, such as Mexico, who Trump has really targeted, people who his followers believe undercut the earning power of the blue-collar worker.
Unsurprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the election results considering Trump’s call for better ties with Russia.
But though his election was formally welcomed in a slew of countries like Germany, Japan, Turkey, Britain, Israel and India, no one seemed to have a clear idea about which direction the US is now headed in. China, for its part, mocked the election with its news agency Xinhua poking fun at the fact that the “most divisive and scandalous election in American history has eroded voters’ faith in the two party system. “
The big worry for American allies like Western European countries, Japan and Korea, is that Trump has repeatedly criticised them for not paying enough for their defence and sponging off the US.  Japan and South Korea have additional reasons to worry because they are big exporters and the president-elect’s attitude towards free trade is negative, to say the least.
Trump’s victory has given the right wing in Europe a boost and in Israel, the right-wing elements believe that they could well see the end of the American support for a two-state solution in relation to Palestine.

What about India?
What does a Trump victory mean for India ? Actually not much. The support by the Hindu right-wing in the US will definitely register in his mind, but India-US relations are not on Trump’s list of priorities. The message he has from those who elected him is to fix things internally and set right the terms of trade that have impoverished the US and to get free-loading allies to pay for their security.
There are worries about H1B visas, but these are minor compared to the scale of possibilities that exist in the realm of Indo-US relations today. In any case, Indian firms are or ought to, move out of the BPO sector and go in for higher end software solutions. Mollycoddling them at a low level is not benefitting anyone.
Those who expect Trump to come down on Pakistan may be disappointed. Whatever his personal predilections may be, he is unlikely to cut off a state as dangerous as Pakistan. As they say, hold your friends close, but hold your enemies closer. Having invested a lot of time, effort and money in Pakistan, Washington is not about to turn its back on Islamabad and let it become a hotbed for potential terrorists wanting to take a pot-shot at the US.
What will definitely benefit India is a possible Russian-American entente. This could reduce the fatal attraction of Beijing for Moscow. If that happens, India can breathe a bit easier, because by itself it lacks the geopolitical clout to prevent the rise of a new Sino-Russian alliance in Eurasia.
It is true that in the end, it is political interests rather than personal predilections that drive the foreign policies of mature countries. In that sense, both the US and India need each other – one to check China in larger Asia and the other to moderate the Sino-Pak axis in South Asia. As of now, both have a congruence of interests in Asia and the Indian Ocean which are not likely to change in a hurry, and many of those interests have to do with the rise of China.
At the end of the day, Trump’s foreign and security policies will depend on the team that executes them, and, as of now, no one has a clue as to what this will be. Will it have any South Asian hands and Indian-Americans as the Obama Administration had? Who will be Trump’s sub-cabinet appointees and advisers ?
Trump, a showy, and possibly shady, businessman before his new job, could well be like Ronald Reagan, content to lay out the broad contours of his vision and letting a trusted team implement them. That, however, would require not just The Gipper’s fabled luck, but also a team of individuals like Jim Baker, George Schultz , Caspar Weinberger, Frank Carlucci and Donald T. Regan. But, unlike Reagan who had been an active politician for at least two decades before he became president, Trump is starting from scratch.
thewire.in November 9, 2016

To be 'great' or 'stronger together'?

The American Presidential Election of 2016 is likely to be the most acrimonious in recent history as well as a peculiar contest where the outcome depended on who was less unpopular. But what would the outcome mean for India? Nothing dramatic, for the simple reason that India does not figure too high in the US scheme of things.
The elections have focused American attention on how bad things are at home — crumbling infrastructure, unworkable health insurance system, racism, sexism, no jobs for many people and so on. But, whoever is elected will very soon have to confront a world where American power and authority are being assailed. In some measure this is because of the continuing travails of its great ally — the European Union. But also because of the rise of China, and Beijing's choices, whether in building an alliance with Russia, or in challenging US power in the South China Sea.
President Obama understood some of this and tried to take the US away from its unrewarding external commitments such as Afghanistan and Iraq. But the missteps of the Europeans, primarily Britain and France, have created new quagmires in Libya and Syria, even though the Americans have, in the main, have tried to stay away from them. With all this happening, a stable India, which is comfortable with American power is a boon for Washington. India remains a regional power and has no problem creating potential like China and Russia.
Besides, India needs America more than the other way round and all this will be true regardless of who becomes the US President. Indian diplomacy is making little headway with Pakistan and China — its two problem-making neighbours. India needs the US to push back against both. India will be happy with whoever is the President because it understands that there is likely to be little change in the Washington-New Delhi dynamics. As it is the trend line in Indo-US relations is positive. Their strategic coordination is slowly solidifying into a strategic alliance and the more China and Pakistan misbehave, the more Washington will come to rely on New Delhi providing some leverage in the region.
But of course, the situation is not that simple. The emerging Russia-China axis poses challenges in different dimensions to both India and the US. From India's point of view, it distracts the Americans from their Asian pivot where New Delhi plays a larger role. In addition, it undermines the India-Russia relationship which has been one of the constants of the last fifty years. India's feeble domestic defence production capabilities compel it to seek Russian options because the US still remains niggardly in offering up cutting-edge weapons systems.
Then, viewed from another angle, the Sino-US relationship remains substantial and even close, the $659 billion in trade in goods and services between them says so. There is substantive economic interdependence and many suspect that what the Chinese seek is not to supplant the US as the global hegemon, but to be accepted as a partner of sorts. The Chinese relationship is simply too im­p­ortant for either the US or EU to disdain and they have a major stake in its stability and success.
A great of deal of the nature of the Indo-US relationship, under a new American president, will depend on how New Delhi pitches itself to the US. We will be wasting precious capital if we made our membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as a major touchstone. New Delhi's obsession with the NSG membership is a bit of a mystery, considering we already have the waiver we need on nuclear trade, and the NSG itself has passed a key rule that would limit that trade.
Even more, it would be folly to do as the Modi government is doing — making terrorism the be all and end all of our foreign policy. In the last six months, almost every event, the most recent being the BRICS Summit hosted by us in Goa, has seen New Delhi focus on terrorism. This despite the fact that there has been no major mass-casualty attack targeting civilians (the common definition of terrorism) in the country since the Mumbai attack of 2008.
A new US President, even if it is Trump, is not likely to humour New Delhi on this issue. Pakistan remains important in the US calculus because of Afghanistan, sure, but Islamabad is intrinsically important to the US because it has nuclear weapons and it is close to China. The US is not about to turn its back on Islamabad because India says so.
At the end of the day, the quality of the relationship between India and the US under a new President will depend on the real substance of that relationship — trade, diplomatic give and take, military-to-military ties.
Mid Day November 8, 2016

Modi stirs the hornet’s nest with NDTV media gag

The Modi government has stirred a hornet’s nest in imposing a one-day ban on NDTV India on clearly specious grounds.There is nothing in the report in question that justifies the application of Rule (6)(p) of the Programme Code of Cable TV Network Rules, 1994 which bans the “live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces”.

Indeed, an Indian Express report says that the specific information that the NDTV report allegedly revealed was itself flawed and even more sensitive information had been given out by other channels.

Free press

The government has carefully chosen to make an example out of a channel which is renowned for its sharp reports and goes out of its way to avoid sensational coverage. 

It would seem that in today’s environment where the world is divided into “nationalists” and “anti-nationals,” there is no space for reporting that questions the official narrative as NDTV India routinely does.

No country provides for the absolute freedom of speech or complete freedom to its media. The American Constitution’s 1st Amendment has exceptions relating to obscenity, defamation, incitement and so on.

NDTV faced a day-long 'black-out' broadcasting banned 'live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces'

 

In India’s case, the freedom is further restricted on issues relating to the integrity of the country and even friendly relations with foreign states.

But all democratic countries treasure a free media for the role it plays in stabilising the governmental system - informing people about government actions or warning of their errors and omissions.

In independent India, the free press has been seen as the custodian of its right of free speech.

That is why the Indira Gandhi government was roundly attacked for imposing censorship during the Emergency.

An attempt by the Rajiv Gandhi government to restrict free speech via a new anti-defamation law came a cropper in 1988.

However, in the case of the electronic media, which was, in any case, the exclusive preserve of the government till the 1990s, the bureaucracy found an alternative route to censorship via the Cable TV Network Rules, just as they have done in the case of the Internet.

The background of the NDTV India ban lies in the Mumbai terror strike of November 2008.

It is well known that the terrorist handlers were following Indian media coverage and using it to direct the terrorists holed up in various locales in Mumbai.

But the primary reason for this was the abject failure of the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai Police to establish an effective cordon around the area of the operation.

Common good

Such a responsibility lies with every state and local administration where a terrorist incident may occur.

It is only in the event that a media wantonly breaks the rules that action should be initiated against them.

But what should media do when the authorities do not do their job and then claim that the media broke the rules?

The idea of the freedom of the media evolved with democracy.

As societies became more complex, the need for accurate and timely information was felt.

This was not only for business activities, but governance. Democracy rose with the partisan political parties competing in periodic elections to govern society.

To assist people in making informed choices, there arose a need for a media that could report without fear or favour.

All of society, government and opposition have seen it as a common good. Governments need a free media to alert them to missteps and emerging problems, their challengers need it so that to make their case against an incumbent government.

Official cocoon

In 1977 Mrs Indira Gandhi lost every Lok Sabha seat in an arc from Gujarat to Orissa. She had no clue that things were so bad for the Congress. The reason was that there was no free media to report what was really happening around her.

We are nowhere near that situation today. But the Modi government’s disdain for people who have different views on issues ranging from terrorism, foreign policy o some dietary preferences does not bode well.

Modi himself largely distances himself from the media, preferring to use the one-way communication of Twitter. Eventually, he may end up paying the price.

Power isolates, and absolute power isolates absolutely. One of the most powerful prime ministers of the country, he lives in an official cocoon, dependent on others for information.

Since our babus and ministers are not the most courageous people, they tend to keep negative information away from the boss or massage it to meaninglessness.

A free media, with all its biases and faults remains the best means of keeping a hand on the pulse of the country, something every public man ought to cherish.

Mail Today November 6, 2016