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Wednesday, May 6, 1998

	Eschew perverse restraint China acquired the capability to shoot missiles all the way to the United States some years ago. That, of course, makes us in India sitting ducks if Beijing mandarins ever decide to go for it. A few weeks ago Pakistan too decided to expose its ballistic missile capability through `Ghauri', and has promised more through `Ghazanavi'. That's two of our neighbours. And our part of the world bristles with missiles -- from North Korea in the Far East to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, with lots of countries in between. What do we do?		Governors as victims of power play There is a French saying Plus c'est la meme chose which means ``the more things change, the more they remain the same.'' In contemporary Indian polity, with every change, things have shown only further deterioration.
	Expanding the alliance The BJP's travails continue. Its national council resolution on expanding and consolidating the BJP-led alliance could lead those with a sense of irony to wonder why it should court more trouble when the party has its hands more than full keeping its present flock together. But of course that is precisely why the BJP is forced to look to spread its wings even as its rank and file worries about ideological dilution forced by the broad-basing of its coalition.		To change or not Union Home Minister and BJP leader L.K. Advani has been talking off and on about the need for a switch-over to the presidential form of government. The Gandhinagar session of the BJP was the latest platform from where he made such a plea. Unfortunately, on none of these occasions has he given a cogent reason why the nation should go in for a new system.

Rule of ransom
Russian president Boris yeltsin has sent a team of his top trouble-shooters to Chechnya, to negotiate the release of his special envoy in the region, Valentin Vlasov. Last week, Vlasov became the first high-profile Kremlin official to be taken hostage since the end of Chechen war in 1996. It's still not clear, who kidnapped him or what was the motive behind the abduction. While the Russian and Chechen authorities try to trace the whereabouts of Vlasov, the abduction has once again highlighted a serious problem.

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