Monday, June 15, 1998
Nukes and gas
Madeleine Albright probably scents a triumph of US diplomacy in the outcome of back-to-back sessions in London of the G-8 and the Contact Group on the Balkans, and a luncheon meeting of non-weapons states in between. It shows the US in command of diverse bodies, including an emerging broader coalition to deal with South Asia.
Reform in reverse
The country's future finance ministers will find Yashwant Sinha's remarkable reverse driving a tough act to follow. The latest amendment to the Budget he had presented with a great deal of ceremony on June 1, has seen the country's projected fiscal deficit shoot up from Rs 91,000 crore to Rs 95,000 crore and the revenue deficit, from Rs 48,068 to Rs 51,668 crore.
The digital imagination
Something unusual happened to books this month. They no longer need to come out in hardback or paperback, nor in paper and ink. June 1998 has seen the complete birth of the digital text. A typical electronic library on the Internet would stock copies of Lord Jim, The Frogs, Anabasis and The Book of Mormon, scanned straight off a dog-eared print copy and uploaded into cyberspace.
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