Is Narendra Modi’s leadership on trial? on May 6, 2021Pakistan’s recent offer to India to help it in its current battle with Covid-19 has been lauded worldwide as a triumph of humanity over narrow ethnic, religious, and national considerations. India lacks the tools to effectively fight the virus, SARS-CoV-2, as vaccines, life-saving equipment, oxygen, ventilators, and, most crucially, hospital emergency beds are in critically […]
Saviors of US Democracy on December 14, 2020Long before the US presidential elections on November 3, 2020, reporters asked President Donald Trump whether he would accept the election results if they went against him. He declined to give a clear response, but implied that if he lost it would only be on account of fraud and rigging of results. This year, voting […]
US Democracy at a Crossroad on December 2, 2020From where I write this essay, the White House, the official residence of the US presidents, is less than twenty miles away, and that is where the 45th US president, Donald Trump, has been largely sequestered since the November 3 rd elections. He was decisively defeated by now president-elect Joe Biden who secured, as of […]
Democracy at a crossroad on November 27, 2020From where I write this essay, the White House, the official residence of the US presidents, is less than twenty miles away, and that is where the current president Donald Trumphas been largely sequesteredsince the November 3rdelections. He has even shelved his plans to go to his palatial estate, Mar-a-Lago, in Florida to celebrate the […]
Zoom meetings throw a social lifeline on October 23, 2020In 1971-1972, I spent a couple of years in the Washington area working as a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health. It seems so long ago, especially as the demographics and contours of the area have changed so radically. At the time, thenonwhite population was small, and culturalactivitiesof special interest to South Asians […]
Indian immigrants are a success story on September 19, 2020On August 18, 2020, American women celebrated the centennialof winning the right to voteon a par with men. Of course, they havesince made giant strides in many fields, serving at the top of many professional bodies, in addition to holding elective offices.The most recent symbol of progress was the nomination by the Democratic Party of […]
The New Rhythm of Life in the US on March 31, 2020It was early morning on a working day in mid-Marchas my wife and I came out of our house to pick up some groceries at a nearby shop. We saw the main street close to useerily quiet and deserted, which normallybustleswith morning commuters, buses taking children to school and businessmen rushing to catch theMetro to […]
A novel Virus and unchartered course on March 8, 2020Located some 11,000 miles east of Lahore, Wuhan,the capital of Hubei province in central China intruded on the world’sconsciousness in December 2019 as the epicenter of a novel coronavirus which was making hundreds of people sick.Thesevere respiratory diseasecaused by the coronavirus, similar in symptoms to seasonal influenza,has now been named by the World Health Organization, […]
Rise and fall of democracy in Egypt on June 27, 2019From the days of ancient Egypt over three millenniums ago when the pharaohs, the God-like Monarchs, ruled the country until the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime in 2011, Egypt had never known an elected, democratic Government. However, following the florescence of Arab Spring and the huge demonstrations against his regime, Mubarak was forced to […]
How enduring is Modi’s spell? on June 8, 2019Asthe Indian elections approached their final phase, Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to visit Kedarnath templedevoted to Lord Shiva and located some 12,000 feet in the high Himalayas. He spent 17 hours, swaddled in saffron robes,meditating and offering prayers in a holy cave, according to the venerable Indian newspaper,The Hindu.He was careful, however, to ensure […]