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On Thursday, the Reserve Bank of India announced its decision to conduct simultaneous purchase and sale of government securities for Rs 10,000 crore each under its Open Market Operations (OMO) after the current liquidity, market situation and evolving financial conditions. Financial markets perceive this as an Indian variant of Operation Twist, as the asset purchase programme kicked off by the Kennedy administration in the US in 1961 and later in 2011 by the US Federal Reserve to help lower long-term interest rates, was called.
Tasneem Tayeb’s lament in The Daily Star while more wistful, is no less severe an indictment. He invokes Amartya Sen’s Argumentative Indian – the eponymous concept, and the way it was reflected in the values and discourse in India, from Ashoka to Akbar and Nehru and beyond. And the article hints at the apprehension that it may be beyond repair: “But India today looks very different from the India of Ashoka or Akbar. The India today is being ruled by Hindu nationalist forces, who the people have mandated to powerfully aware of their agenda.
There are at least four firsts in the December 17 judgment, and in the detailed judgment on December 19, of the special court in Pakistan that held Pervez Musharraf guilty of high treason and sentenced him to death: This is the first case in Pakistan being tried under Article 6 of the constitution that deals with treason and abrogation of the constitution; it is the first time that an army chief is being tried for treason and it is the first time that an army chief has actually been convicted. These three firsts are historic in themselves and will have important consequences for Pakistan’s democratic evolution.