Moditva here, Talibanisation in Pak

The 8216;8216;poster boy for India8217;s vicious communal tensions8217;8217;. The 8216;8216;face of India8217;s future8217;8217;? ...

The 8216;8216;poster boy for India8217;s vicious communal tensions8217;8217;. The 8216;8216;face of India8217;s future8217;8217;? One that has launched a 8216;8216;new generation of Hindu militants8217;8217;. The question marks battled with the full stops in NEWSWEEK8217;s cover story on 8216;8216;Modi8217;s Moment8217;8217;, a year after Godhra. There8217;s even talk, the magazine said, that Modi could be India8217;s next prime minister.

NEWSWEEK framed the worries, real and exaggerated. That 8216;8216;Modi-style intimidation8217;8217; of minorities is making India feel like 8216;8216;1930s Germany8217;8217;. That the judiciary8217;s failure to investigate his government for its complicity in the riots is 8216;8216;Balkanising the country8217;8217;. It spoke of the Congress8217;s difficulties in confronting the depth of 8216;8216;Hindu nationalist sentiment8217;8217; in India. It pointed to a new generation of 8216;8216;up-and-comers8217;8217;, in the words of Jairam Ramesh, 8216;8216;the Albert Speers generation8217;8217;: technocrats who are economically liberalisers and socially bigots. To Congress, from NEWSWEEK: don8217;t try and beat the BJP at its own game. Because 8216;8216;8230; the best chance of defeating a demagogue lies in ideas and policies that speak to people8217;s needs.8217;8217;

But in the end, it turned out to be the familiar two-in-one take on the subcontinent. The story on Modi8217;s India was immediately followed by a report on 8216;8216;A growing Talibanisation8217;8217; in Pakistan along the Afghan border. Where newly powerful mullahs are issuing fatwas running musicians out of show business. And police hold public bonfires of confiscated videos, CDs films, cosmetics8230; 8216;8216;like the stridently religious Hindu nationalists in neighbouring India8230;8217;8217;???

The WASHINGTON POST wrote that the installation of Savarkar8217;s portrait in Parliament reflected the 8216;8216;degree to which hardline Hindu nationalism has moved into the mainstream of Indian politics, drowning out debate on other topics8230;8217;8217;

The FINANCIAL TIMES8217; concerns about India8217;s economy in Budget week sounded sedate in comparison. Jaswant Singh must resist complacence, it urged. It pointed to the government8217;s fiscal deficit and the quality of deficit spending 8212; salaries, interest payments and administrative costs with the remainder frittered on subsidies hijacked by middle-class lobbies.

Expert sounds warning bell

Making his most expansive case for war yet, George W. Bush detailed the post-Saddam scenario. As Bush framed it, it was a hopeful vision of a free Iraq, serving as a catalyst for peace in a troubled region. A 8216;8216;neo-Wilsonian view of the imperative to spread liberty and democracy8217;8217; wrote the WASHINGTON POST.

Thomas Carothers, a democracy specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, countered that a US attack would heighten anti-Americanism, strengthen militant Islamic groups and deter Arabic countries from experimenting with political change. 8216;8216;This does not mean that the Arab world will never democratise,8217;8217; Carothers wrote in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 8216;8216;But it does mean that democracy will be decades in the making and entail a great deal of uncertainty, reversal and turmoil8217;8217;.

NAM: Overcome by global politics?

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As 116 leaders gathered in Kuala Lumpur for the Non-Aligned Movement8217;s 13th summit, John Aglionby in the GUARDIAN had a question: 8216;8216;What has 232 legs but cannot walk in a straight line in any direction, has trouble expressing any sort of definitive opinion, and is probably at death8217;s door?8217;8217;

NAM could become a socio-economic force, fighting for the rights and interests of developing countries at the IMF or the WTO, argued Aglionby. But, he rued, global politics continues to dominate proceedings. His diagnosis: you can take the movement out of its founding era, but you cannot take the founding era sentiments out of the movement. Thereby hangs a debate not many seem willing to join anymore.

Clean bowled by Ashish Nehra

Someone alert the anti-doping unit, urgently recommended the cricket columnist in Britain, because surely a cricketer could face suspension for having traces of a performance-enhancing drug in his name. They are talking, of course, of Ashish Nehra whose bowling sent England to the brink of World Cup elimination. Another columnist flattered Nehra: If India loses against Pakistan at the Centurion today, he predicted that someone, somewhere in India, will burn an effigy of Ashish Nehra.