The whistle echoes

The FT spoke to Jeevan Reddy, former chairman of Law Reform Commission, who drafted India8217;s first Whistleblower8217;s Bill in 2001, which Parliament never debated. Reddy told the paper that India needs a new law to expose corruption and it also needs to address the powerlessness of the courts.

Powell8217;s burden

8216;8216;I KNOW 8212; I was present at its creation8217;8217;, writes COLIN POWELL in the first issue of FOREIGN AFFAIRS in the new year. President Bush does have a vision for the world, he says, and a strategy.

Contrary to what the critics allege, Powell insists the US is not unilateralist by design, or imbalanced in favour of military methods, obsessed with terrorism, biased towards preemptive war on a global scale. Preemption only supplements deterrence, he says, 8216;8216;Partnership is the watchword of US strategy8217;8217; and there mustn8217;t be a 8216;8216;multipolar8217;8217; world only because Bush believes that 8216;8216;there need be no poles among a family of nations that shares basic values8217;8217;.

Basically, Powell8217;s burden is: US foreign policy is much misunderstood. THE NEW YORK TIMES suggested that what Powell is really saying is: he himself is much misunderstood. It sympathised with what must be a frustrating experience, surely, at 8216;8216;having to set the record straight so late in the administration8217;8217;. As he enters his final year in Bush8217;s term, Powell8217;s is the paradox of the best known member of Bush8217;s team, and a popular figure worldwide, who feels his accomplishments are not appreciated.

And in Christmas week when the US raised the alert level from yellow to orange, Michael Ignatieff, writer and academic, wrote in the FT that the striking image at the end of this year is not of US omnipotence but the 8216;8216;limits of American strength8217;8217;. US military struggles to subdue a rag-tag resistance in conquered Iraq. It pulls Saddam out of a hole but is unable to find Osama. The Achilles heel of American power, he argued, has been its inability to understand its dependence on others.

Soldiering on

IN the British and American media, the usual deluge of yearenders. It8217;s the time of the year when even the routine analysis threatens to take on an epic resonance.

For TIME, everything else, everyone else, comes later. The American Soldier is The Person Of The Year, and coincidentally enough, as Managing Editor James Kelly mentions in his editorial, Donald Rumsfeld thinks so too. The magazine celebrated this soldier 8216;8216;for the challenge of defending not only freedoms at home but those barely stirring half a world away8217;8217;. It profiled America8217;s 8216;8216;Secretary of War8217;8217;. And Donald Rumsfeld8217;s deputy. Paul Wolfowitz, who, as a close associate told TIME, straight-faced, 8216;8216;asks himself every day how he can limit suffering by toppling another dictator or by helping people to govern themselves.8217;8217;!

In NEWSWEEK, the man who in 1989 famously predicted The End of History 8212; he8217;s still saying it. But what of the many divides, even within the 8216;West8217;? And with Iraq still in contention? 8216;8216;Clearly we8217;re in a lot of turbulence right now because of all this Islamic radicalism8230;8217;8217; said Francis Fukuyama. 8216;8216;But8230; 8216;The End Of History8217; was a story about where modernisation was taking us, and I think there8217;s still a pretty clear endpoint to that.8217;8217;

In an editorial, the FT wrote of a 8216;8216;religious revival in war and diplomacy8217;8217;. It was taking its cue from a recent British Foreign Office statement that ideological battles of the past were likely to give way to confrontations that 8216;8216;stem from religion and culture8217;8217;. But, contended the FT, it would be complacent to suggest that the west has resolved most of these questions and that it will inevitably clash with the Islamic world which hasn8217;t. 8216;8216;Poles, Austrians and others would like to see God in any future European constitution. The French worry about Muslim girls wearing headscarves. In the US, meanwhile, fundamentalist religiosity is making a comeback8217;8217;. Contemporary West is not as immune to the old conflicts as it likes to think it is, rebuked the FT.

Cheer Down Under

In THE AUSTRALIAN, Mike Coward was frankly joyous about a 8216;8216;tantalising new rivalry8217;8217;. Till about 10 days ago, he said, until Adelaide, international interest in Indo-Australian cricket focused on the 8216;8216;machinations of administrative and corporate boardrooms.8217;8217; They spoke of the BCCI, the game8217;s wealthiest administration, and of Cricket Australia, for setting the standard in player-employer relations, corporate governance, coaching and marketing initiatives. The two countries are now also attracting attention 8216;8216;in the middle8217;8217;.

Lovers of the game, rejoice. The Australian team may be finally rescued from the 8216;8216;weakness and lopsidedness8217;8217; of the international competition so far. The cricket community is gifted a marvellous new contest. To talk about for years.

Free at last

IT8217;S a tale to end a year on. It8217;s a tale to begin a new year with. Last week, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a 78-year-old dignified grandmother and retired schoolteacher, finally confirmed decades of rumours and told the WASHINGTON POST that she was the oldest child of the late Strom Thurmond, born of his liaison with a a 16-year-old black housemaid. As senator and governor, Thurmond was a fierce segregationist and one of the most prominent opponents of civil rights legislation.

Speaking without anger or bitterness, his daughter revealed she had been silent all these years out of respect for him and that telling the world who she really is makes her feel 8216;8216;completely free8217;8217;. The POST sensed relief, and pride, in the room that received her declaration. 8216;8216;For the moment, at least, they were not blacks or white, they were South Carolinians, able to acknowledge and deal with their past 8212; and the reality of their complex history and heritage.8217;8217;