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Heavyweight Cabinet
The installation of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government marks a turning point in India's post-Independence history. It is truly the triumph of democracy that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was considered untouchable until a few months ago, today heads the largest-ever coalition that has come to power at the Centre or in states.
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Eternally EMS
Ideally, there should not be a last word on Elamkulam Manackal Shankaran Namboodiripad. In the world in which he lived, the idea of liberation was eternal. Whenever the impulses of history made an unsolicited intrusion into that world of permanent struggle, the pure, sacred passions of EMS contained them. It was not defiance.
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The wheel comes full circle
Twenty-Eight years after the First War of Indian Independence in 1857, as the country still moaned and writhed in imperial labour, the fledging Indian National Congress was born out of a typically miscegenous congress. A. O. Hume, who had taken time off from bird-watching, fathered it. To the British the Congress was to be be a "safety-valve" and to the Indians, Hume was to be a "lightning conductor".
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Predictably unpredictable
In moments when variegated political forces are pitted against each other, and structures of political governance seem to rest on quicksand, certain individuals -- otherwise of little consequence in national-level politics -- come to play pivotal roles. One such moment is what we are presently living through and one such person, none other than AIADMK general secretary Jayalalitha Jayaram.
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