Dangerous deadlock: on LAC talks

As winter arrives on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the latest round of talks — the thirteenth — between India and China ended with no resolution in sight, leaving tens of thousands of soldiers facing the prospect of another harsh cold season on the heights of Eastern Ladakh. The contrasting statements sharply underlined the deadlock. The Indian Army’s statement on Monday morning noted that while India made “constructive suggestions” for resolving the remaining areas, the Chinese side “was not agreeable and also could not provide any forward-looking proposals”. A Chinese statement on Sunday night accused India of making “unreasonable and unrealistic demands”. There was no joint statement, as in the last round in August, when agreement was reached to disengage at Gogra. The only surprise is that the discord is now fully out in the open, in contrast to the anodyne declarations of both sides in August to “enhance trust” and “expeditiously resolve” issues that have already dragged on
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Limits to accommodation: on RBI's monetary policy

The RBI’s latest monetary policy statement and accompanying actions reflect the dilemma confronting monetary authorities. While the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to keep benchmark interest rates unchanged as part of its efforts to support growth as the economy recovers, one of the six members on the MPC demurred yet again and voted against continuing with an accommodative stance for ‘as long as necessary’. Prof. Jayanth Varma had at the last meeting in August flagged the risks that prolonged monetary accommodation posed to the inflation outlook by ‘stimulating asset price inflation’ even as he posited that its impact in ‘mitigating the distress in the economy’ was arguably far more marginal. The MPC’s own current inflation outlook is a mixed bag. The projection for average inflation for the full fiscal year has been cut by 40 basis points to 5.3% even as the committee stresses that with core inflation ‘persisting at an elevated level’, the Centre and States would
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Editorial

A probe after prodding: On Lakhimpur Kheri violence

The arrest of Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra, appears to be a course of action impelled mainly by the intervention of the Supreme Court, which voiced its dissatisfaction with the way the Uttar Pradesh police were handling the killing of four farmers and four others during a protest. By taking cognisance of the incidents that took place during a farmers’ protest at Tikonia in Lakhimpur-Kheri district, the Court may have helped infuse some much-needed impetus to the investigation. The Bench gave enough time until its next hearing on October 20 to the police to pursue the probe diligently, but not without thinking aloud on whether any other agency ought to take it over and asking the State police chief to preserve the evidence. The arrest of the Minister’s son, coming after he had skipped an earlier summons and was questioned for long hours once he appeared, is largely in response to the Court’s criticism. The Bench, headed by the Chief Justice of

Editorial

A homecoming: On Air India and the Tatas

Air India, the airline started by J.R.D. Tata in the 1930s, is all set to return to the Tata fold after a 68-year-long journey as India’s state-owned flag carrier. The Centre’s announcement on Friday that Tata Sons’ subsidiary Talace Pvt. Ltd. was the winning bidder for the 100% stake in the debt-laden airline rings the curtain on the government’s multi-year effort to privatise the loss-making carrier. Talace emerged winner in the two-horse race by bidding to take over ₹15,300 crore of Air India’s more than ₹60,000 crore of accumulated debt and offering an additional ₹2,700 crore in cash for the Government’s equity stake. For the Tatas, who have retained an abiding interest in the country’s airline industry and currently majority own both a budget carrier, AirAsia India, and a full-service airline, Vistara, the Air India acquisition brings opportunities to gain scale and synergies at a significant level. With Air India and its low-cost unit, Air India Express, together serving 55

Editorial

Grim turn: on Srinagar civilian killings

The killings of seven civilians in Srinagar in six days mark a grim turn in the situation in the Kashmir Valley. This vicious, mindless violence against commoners, owned up by a group that calls itself the Resistance Front — believed to be a shadow organisation of the Pakistan-based LeT — is yet another reminder of the pathological hatred transnational radical Islamism inspires. The victims include local Muslims who were branded traitors, but the targeting of the Hindu Pandit and Sikh minority communities is unmistakable. Srinagar’s prominent Kashmiri Pandit chemist, Makhan Lal Bindroo, whose decision to stay on through the violent 1990s was seen as a positive omen by the displaced community, was gunned down. The killers used epithets such as ‘RSS stooge’, ‘police informer’ and ‘traitor’ for the victims. Majid Ahmad Gojri and Mohammad Shafi Dar were killed on October 2. On October 7, a Sikh principal and a Kashmir Pandit who had returned to the Valley after taking up a job under the

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Needless escalation: On Lakhimpur Kheri violence

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