After retiring from the B K Birla Group, Arvind Lavakare, the well-known sports commentator, has turned his attention to politics and national issues.

• Diwali Blues  - November 6, 2002
'The golden rule for India, the nation, would seem to be: dissent and delay --- if the world passes us, so be it, but we must live up to our image of being a democracy, the biggest in the world in case you didn't know or had forgotten.'

• Distressing signs from J&K  - October 30, 2002
'If the PDP fails in its allotted first use of the batting crease in Srinagar, the Congress can always claim to have been only the non-striker. And if it succeeds, the Congress can boast about it during the 2004 general election.'

• Dropped 'catches' in J&K  - October 22, 2002
'If, somehow, the Mufti comes to wield power, the nation may well be on the way to missing the J&K bus altogether.'

• New deal a must for J&K   - October 15, 2002
'Such a new deal alone can remove the state's all pervading discontent and convince the people there that they are part and parcel of the freedom-loving, friendly and forward-looking nation called India.'

• Parivar ko gussa kyon aata hai?   - October 8, 2002
'How is it then that these men of considerable substance have become such indignant proponents of Hinduism, the most tolerant faith in the world?'

• The battle is against the Pakistani psyche   - October 1, 2002
'Just angst and anger are not going to rid us of dozens of Akshardham. Nor, for that matter, does the solution lie in the intellectual's undying faith in secularism. What is needed first and foremost is a new religion: India, first and least.'

• Now for some governance please   - September 24, 2002
'In J&K there is a crying need, a craving, not for autonomy but for a clean, sensitive and forward-looking government.'

• Jethmalani's hollow proclamations   - September 10, 2002
'Jethmalani's Jammu & Kashmir Committee has proved -- if ever proof were needed -- that the Shahs, Lones, Geelanis and Bhats of J&K have been needlessly pampered as holding the key to the resolution of the J&K impasse.'

• The Gujarat impasse   - September 4, 2002
'Was the EC telling us the whole truth when it concluded that "it is presently not in a position to conduct a free and fair election" in Gujarat?'

• The EC's Gujarat Order   - August 27, 2002
'The Election Commission is to take care of the operational details of an election but it cannot be allowed to dismantle India's electoral system.'

• Labeling with gay abandon   - August 21, 2002
'Let it be clarified that corrupt RSS and BJP people should be blasted -- on the basis of credible evidence, not mere insinuations.'

• "Over half" or just 7%?   - August 13, 2002
'Is it 'just 7%' or is it 'over half of the total' 3,850 pumps that went to relatives of BJP MPs and coalition partners? When, if at all, will the common man have the privilege of knowing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?'

• Uncle Sam, don't lecture us   - August 6, 2002
'Colin Powell's remark that "Kashmir is on the international agenda" was a veiled threat so typical of the New World's master bully named Uncle Sam.'

• J&K: Pre-1953 and its implications   - July 30, 2002
'Do the Abdullahs want their faces and signatures to ornament the currency notes in J&K?'

• J&K: Fact vs fiction   - July 23, 2002
'Why are we scared of the Abdullah dynasty? Because all those who have governed the nation from 1947 have had no policy on J&K -- unless being scared of the Abdullahs is a policy itself.'

• The woes of Jammu and Ladakh   - July 17, 2002
'The RSS resolution advocating J&K's trifurcation is not rooted in communal soil, but in the discrimination practised against Jammu and Ladakh by the long line of Wazir-e-Azams ruling from Srinagar.'

• Abdullah III talks too much   - July 9, 2002
'Abdullah III now has the impudence to say that the RSS wants to hand over J&K to Pakistan. He has the gall to say that today's descendents of the RSS of 1947 "know nothing of Kashmir".'

• The autonomy shrill -- yet again   - July 2, 2002
'What more autonomy does Abdullah III want? An open general licence for nepotism, despotism and ethnic cleansing?'

• 'Free and fair' in Jammu and Kashmir   - June 25, 2002
'Free and fair polls in J&K his time around has become a star attraction on the national scene. Hidden therein is a much bigger distraction -- distraction from the facts of history and from the constitutional-cum-legal framework governing state elections in J&K.'

• A 'titular' head?   - June 18, 2002
'It must be admitted that Narayanan's ingenuity in oft ruffling feathers without plucking them truly exposed the myth that the President of India was merely "a titular head" or any of the other equivalent phrases.'

• Lessons in 'morale terrorism'   - June 12, 2002
'Instead of taking over the nukes of Pakistan, the US and the UK have turned yellow, mortally afraid probably of a fundamentalist Islamic backlash on their dear citizens at home.'

• The indeterminate life of Article 370, II   - June 5, 2002
'The Constitution Review Commission didn't have either the capability to understand the position or the courage to recommend what it should have: abrogation of Article 370 or, in the least, its dilution.'

• The indeterminate life of Article 370, I   - May 29, 2002
'This blatant discrimination between J&K and all other states is patently absurd. It is a colossal failure of the Indian government not to have persuaded the state to fall in line over a 'temporary' arrangement.'

• Where's the Uniform Civil Code?   - May 21, 2002
'It is measure of the nation's appeasement [fear?] of Muslim sentiments that none from Nehru down to I K Gujral have had the spine to even try and do what the fathers of our Constitution had directed them to do.'

• The definition of 'secular'   - May 14, 2002
'One can be "very elastic" and interpret "secular" according to one's fancy and fetish. One can thus consider the Muslim League "secular" though that party doesn't sport a member of any other community, and can consider the BJP as "communal" although it has a Muslim as Union minister.'

• It chose to be a damp squib   - May 7, 2002
'The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution ended up wasting not only a historic opportunity, but also the nation's time and money.'

• Accusations gone rancid, without remorse   - May 2, 2002
'In none of the cases of Hindu bashing did the truth evoke an apology from the prosecutors. The "secularists", you see, have given a life-long immunity -- to themselves.'

• Has a Muslim's prophecy come true?   - April 23, 2002
'The overt and covert appeasement of Muslims by the political class and the media is finally, it appears, becoming too stifling even for the traditionally tolerant Hindu.'

• Of Sabarmati secularism & non-violence   - April 16, 2002
'If the "secularists" want the Hindus of 2002 to accept the Sabarmati shibboleths of non-violence with the Muslims at any cost, they ought to also demand that the red carpet be laid for Pakistan to just stride into Srinagar all the way down into Sabarimalai -- via Sabarmati, if you please.'

• 'National shame' is not for premiers, Mr Vajpayee   - April 9, 2002
'The wound of the majority Hindu psyche has now become putrid and full of pus. If its reprisal after Godhra is condemnable -- and it certainly is -- so is the anti-majorityism of the government.'

• A question of 'squaring up'   - April 2, 2002
'Sense and sanity would demand that the Vajpayee government either amend the present act 33 of 1993 or bring about a totally new legislation on the subject of the 67.703 acres acquired in Ayodhya.'

• The legal labyrinth of Ram's Ayodhya   - March 26, 2002
'On November 7, 1989 the special bench had said, 'It is doubtful that some of the questions involved in the suit are soluble by judicial process.' But if the VHP says that, it will be hauled over coals and told to await the verdict on Ayodhya, and abide by it.'

• The Parivar missed the legal bus   - March 19, 2002
'Just what was the VHP and the Sangh Parivar doing for seven-and-a-half years -- after the majority verdict of the Supreme Court in 1994? Counting the carved shilas?'

• Why 'secular' history repeats itself   - March 5, 2002
'Jayalalithaa reminded political leaders that it was not only the minorities who enjoy "all sorts of rights" under the Constitution, but the majority too have their rights to live in this country,' says Arvind Lavakare.

• State budgets need equal focus   - February 28, 2002
'While the state government budgets of 2001-02 have generally proposed a number of measures reflecting the urgency to expedite the fiscal consolidation process, the success of these measures will depend almost entirely upon the political will of the government concerned.'

• The temple tempest -- yet again   - February 20, 2002
'Judged by the sheer aggressiveness of the VHP in wanting to go ahead with the temple, come what may, we may be headed for yet another round of countrywide communal clashes.'

• Danger in Kashmir   - February 13, 2002
'It is the partisanship of the West that continues to be India's biggest "danger in Kashmir". Nothing short of fearless, clear-cut and constant reiteration of our righteous and legal stand will reduce that danger.'

• Pakistan's hypocrisy on plebiscite   - February 5, 2002
'It should be obvious to the blind, such as the Blairs and Bushes of the world, that, in respect of J&K, Pakistan believes not in plebiscite, not in UN resolutions, and not in "talks", but in possession.'

• Pakistan's web of lies   - January 29, 2002
'Prevarication is almost second nature to Pakistan -- as even large sections of the Western media are now slowly and surely realising.'

• Paki lies continued... on J&K in the UN   - January 22, 2002
'Pakistan's self-proclaimed president of a self-declared military dictatorship badly needs to study the authentic history of the Indian subcontinent.'

• Nailing more Pakistani lies on J&K   - January 15, 2002
'August 14, 1947, saw the Pakistani flag hoisted on the Srinagar office of the postal authorities. Reason? The postal offices within J&K came under the Sialkot circle.'

• More Paki lies: on J&K this time   - January 10, 2002
'It was Pakistan that pressurised the J&K maharaja into acceding to Pakistan -- with dismal failure, as history showed.'

• Pakistan's lies on Junagadh and Hyderabad   - January 1, 2002
'What is Truth? asked the jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer. Indians must drill the truth into Pakistan wherever their president flies or flees, to Kathmandu or Beijing.'

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