Praful Bidwai

December - Special Report
Nepal’s perplexing moment of opportunity
An interim constitution is in place in Kathmandu, and with the Maoists placing their arms in containers under the eye of United Nations monitors, the rebels are about to join the government. Successful in the arena of making peace, the octogenarian Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala now watches with perplexity as disaffection grips the countryside, and particularly the Tarai plains. There is deep suspicion among many that they will be left behind in the process of constitution-making, even as government administration fails to provide the minimal law and order the public has a right to expect. Something is keeping the country together, and it probably is the confidence the people still harbour that Nepal could be the showcase for representative government in Southasia.

December 1999 - Commentary
Pride and Prejudice
At the same time as India gets ready to launch the 'second phase' of neo-liberal economic 'reforms', the Bharatiya Janata Party-dominated government is trying to ram through a Hindu sectarian agenda in culture and education.

November 1999 - Commentary
Sabotaged Summit
SOUTH ASIA The indian government led by the hard-line Bharatiya Janata Party has put a spoke in the wheel of SAARC (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation), by forcing a postponement of the summit, scheduled for 26-28 November in Kathmandu.

July 1999 - Cover
Whose nationalism?
The Kargil mess may well lead to the use of Great Power influence in South Asia, something which New Delhi has resisted for decades For a military engagement which New Delhi is at pains to say is not war, only an "operation", Kargil has been remarkably dirty, tough and bloody. India claims it has killed more than 490 Pakistani soldiers, but it has only taken one prisoner of war.

May 1999 - Commentary
Vote of overconfidence
INDIA THE COLLAPSE of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government barely 13 months after coming to power has sent an unambiguous message to India's politicians: ultranationalism, hawkishness on matters of security, and nuclear and missile muscle-flexing can hardly guarantee political survival.

May 1999 - Feature
Not many Left
Man Mohan Adhikari, Nepal’s "democratic communist" died on 26 April 1999, after collapsing during his campaign as the prime ministerial candidate for the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist). Adhikari, like the late B.P. Koirala, prime minister of Nepal, 1959-60, had fought for Indian independence from the British and had been jailed for his efforts. Later, he stood up against his country's autocratic Panchayat monarchy with quiet self-assurance, and helped bring the communists into mainstream politics after the transition to democracy in 1990, becoming in the process the world's first elected communist prime minister. This was in the post-Soviet Union days when the communists were already being regarded as political dinosaurs. The world may not have noticed, but Nepal and South Asia have lost a democrat and a communist.

July 1998 - Cover
A nuclear family

June 1998 - Commentary
INDIA : Doomsday clock

People versus wildlife 17 May 2013
By Nirmal Ghosh
	Reassessing wildlife conservation policies in India.

After the flood 7 May 2013
By Danial Shah
	The new realities of life for villagers in Hunza Valley who lost their homes and lands to a natural lake following a 2010...

Disappearing foods 25 April 2013

	A collection of recipes that are fading from the Southasian palette.

Eat, drink, write 23 April 2013
By Suman Bolar
	A food writer dishes on the ins and outs of her profession.

Brideprice 22 April 2013
By Manik Bandopadhyay
	A new translation of Manik Bandopadhyay's ‘Namuna’ by Madhusree Mukerjee.

Among the believers 19 April 2013
By Abhishek Choudhary
	An account from Varanasi, where bhang and thandai struggle to survive the onslaught of LSD and Coca-Cola.

Behind the crystals 18 April 2013
By Rituparna Banerjee
	Capturing the lives of Marakkanam’s salt pan workers

In search of food sovereignty 17 April 2013
By K Sandeep
	Shifting the debate on the Public Distribution System.

Missing connections 8 April 2013
By Sarandha
	Girja Kumar’s book on the Indus and the cultures tied to it obscures a tremendous wealth of interconnected histories and...

No place for picnics 4 April 2013
By Freny Manecksha
	Kashmiri women tell their stories of the conflict.

'I bowled left-arm chinaman' 28 March 2013
By Jahnavi Barua
	Shehan Karunatilaka speaks about winning awards, spin bowling, italics in fiction, and much more.

Articles by Praful Bidwai