The Indian Express Expressions Page

The Indian Express

The Financial Express

Latest News

EIW

Market Indicators

Screen

Express Computers

Graffiti

Crossword

Advertisers Forum

Travel & Tourism

Information Technology

Drumbeat: Ad Buzzaar

Astrosurf

Eco-India

Dr Know

Career India

Business Forum

Match Maker

Express Properties

Expressions

Saturday, May 2, 1998

	And now, the collective amnesia While Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his new team have done well to assure the country of their plans to eliminate several economic roadblocks within a fixed time of ninety days, we'd do well to avoid the collective euphoria and, later, amnesia, that usually sets in so rapidly on occasions such as these.		The cares of state Wallace Hangen, in the preface to his book, After Nehru, Who, wrote of the travails of an Indian prime minister. Comparing the demands of the top job with the pittance of a salary he was entitled to, he almost stated his case as: "Why should anyone want to be Prime Minister of India?"
	Cynical games Reports of China's willingness to hold conditional talks with the Dalai Lama should not be taken to mean real movement towards a rapprochement. It is no coincidence that the reports turned up around the time the US Secretary of State was expected in Beijing to prepare the ground for President Clinton's June visit.		VIP insecurity The government deserves to be congratulated on its efforts to downgrade the security of important politicians and other "VIPs". Few things reflect quite as brazenly as the VIP security regime the obsequious concern for the powerful in this country and the callous neglect of those who do not count.

Truth with reconciliation
I was not pushed out of a train. I was not prevented from entering Cafe Fish at the yacht mole or the Famous Fish Company at the entrance to Durban's harbour. I was not made to sit at the back of an aircraft bound for East London. I noticed no designated places for "whites", "blacks" and "coloured" people. This is South Africa for you, four years after the collapse of the racist white regime.

Death of the commune
More than 35 years after the Tenancy Act, 1964, began robbing Goa's communidades (community farms) of their land, rapid industrialisation following the introduction of the tax holiday in 1993, now threatens to transfer the last of the land into the hands of builders and industrialists.