Jul 15, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 15 July The British government response to the failed terrorist actions in London and Glasgow was markedly more measured than in the past. The “war on terror” rhetoric was toned down, there was no threat of yet another round of anti-terror laws, and greater care in speaking about and to… Read more
Jul 1, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 1 July It’s rare that a fashion item makes the slightest impression on me, but I have to confess to being childishly delighted by a purchase I recently made over the internet. It’s a tee-shirt emblazoned with CLR James’s ever-pertinent rhetorical question: What do they know of cricket who only… Read more
May 6, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 6 May After ten years as Prime Minister, Tony Blair faces the end of the road, and for most of us in Britain, his resignation will come not a moment too soon. A man elected in 1997 because he was portrayed as moderate, prudent and sincere has become a by-word… Read more
Apr 22, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 22 April ON April 9, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein, more than a million demonstrators took to the streets of Najaf, Kut and other cities of the Iraqi south, chanting, “Yes! Yes! Iraq, No! No! America.” Amid an ocean swell of green, white and red Iraqi… Read more
Apr 8, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 8 April IN a recent debate over the role of the minnows in the World Cup, BBC Radio’s chief cricket correspondent, Jonathan Agnew, argued that in order to ensure the greater public got to see what it most wanted to see (notably an India-Pakistan match) the minnows should be excluded… Read more
Mar 25, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 25 March THE more I travel, read and study the history of peoples and societies, the more analogies I discover, and at the same time the warier I become of all analogies. History does not repeat itself exactly, but it is full of echoes. Some analogies are routinely abused, while… Read more
Mar 11, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 11 March IN sharp contrast with the situation in India, the run-up to the World Cup in England has been a muted affair. This is partly because cricket just doesn’t carry the weight in its native land that it carries in South Asia. Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool et al,… Read more
Feb 25, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 25 February A reference in my last column to Moses Maimonides as a “12th century Arab Jewish theologian” has perplexed some readers. An Arab and a Jew? Can such a hybrid exist? Like all ethnic designations, both terms are problematic, blurred at the edges. But in the case of Maimonides,… Read more
Feb 11, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 11 February [Note: Muhammed Afzal has been sentenced to death by hanging for his alleged role in the attack on the Indian parliament on 13 December, 2001.] IN 1793, the French Convention was debating the fate of the deposed and imprisoned king, Louis XVI. Thomas Paine, an Englishman who had… Read more
Jan 28, 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD The Hindu, 28 January ALL words can be cheapened by misuse, especially when they are misused by the powerful. The reality they refer to is disguised, rather than revealed. But what happens when the word in question is “reality” itself? On his visit to India, Gordon Brown, still the bookie’s favourite to… Read more
