Advancing media ethics

I would like to begin writing this letter with wishing the Editor of the prestigious Power Politics magazine and his team all success in the new year. Your magazine deserves a deep applause of the whole Nation for keeping up and advancing the media ethics of reporting facts objectively and developing bipartisan prescriptions for the decision-makers in the formal as well as nonformal sectors in our democracy. Your efforts are commendable indeed. Regrettably, this media ethics has been vanishing from a greater part of the media across the world . I hope other newspapers and magazines in our country would emulate your path for the betterment of our nation.
As always in the past, the December issue of your magazine is superb from the viewpoint of media ethics . It offers highly credible analyses of almost all crucial issues before India and the world today. You have rightly stressed that we must accord our highest priority to the Nation in whatever we do.
It is really shocking to learn from your magazine that there are so many allegedly criminal elements in our legislative bodies. I hope all those forces, who swear by our Constitution and believe that our parliamentary democracy must be meaningful in taking the Nation and its people forward, would seriously ponder over the likely dangerous implications of the presence of such criminals in our political system. We must do something substantial in this direction. The sooner , the better .

Krishna Kabir
Kolkata

Capital punishment must end

Supreme Court Ours is a state of advanced civilization. There can be no case for capital punishment in our times. There is a near consensus across the enlightened world public spectrum that this form of punishment must be abolished .
The dominant thinking on the subject of capital punishemnt is we cannot give back to any convict his or her life if it were found tomorrow that the convict was not an offender in the case and was wrongly hanged to death.
Besides, the law laid down in the Bachan Singh(1980) case that upholds the validity of the death penalty and laying down guidelines for awarding death in ‘the rarest of rare’ cases’ does not seem to work well on the operational plane. Experience is that different judges have awarded death sentence in an arbitrary manner . The public discourse can also come to influence a decision on this case. The Law Commission Report (2015) has admitted that the constitutional regulation of capital punishment has failed to prevent death sentences from being “arbitrarily and freakishly imposed”. It is high time our Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional.

Vishnu J
Chennai

Border friction intact

The Dalai Lama I wonder what our National Security Adviser Ajit Doval did during his recent visit to China for the 21st edition of Special Representatives talks.
The resolution of the boundary dispute, for which this mechanism was created by our former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003 , is still nowhere in sight.
Recently, one heard of the ‘Wuhan spirit’ and the effort to link up the two nations’ military headquarters and regional commands with hotlines. But nothing substantial has happened so far.
The communist leadership in Beijing does not seem to be positive in the case of settling its border dispute with New Delhi ( and Thimpu). Beijing has resolved all its land borders disputes with other nations. Doval must not waste his time with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi.
New Delhi must remain cautious . We must not overlook the possibilities of China’s cartographic designs. India has had borders with Tibet, not China.
The Dalai Lama, the legitimate leader of Tibet, has been living in India. New Delhi would do well to take up the matter of the border issue with the Dalai.

K Sudarshan
Mumbai

Powerful US-China linkages

Donald J Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping Communist China and the United States are now trying to bridge their trade differences within 90 days. During their talks in Argentina last month, American President Donald J Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to halt slapping additional tariffs on each other. Under this 90-day truce Washington would not boost tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25% on January 1. Beijing would buy “very substantial” amount of agricultural, energy, industrial and other products from the United States.
Xi agreed to designate the drug fentanyl as a controlled substance. Washington had raised concerns about the synthetic opioid being sent from China to the United States . The two sides would be addressing issues, including technology transfer, intellectual property, non-tariff barriers, and agriculture.
New Delhi must understnad the pattern of relationship between the United States and China and develop its own relationships with each of the two powers. It should not expect too much from Washington. Common interests between China and the United States are too important for the latter to align itself with India at the cost of China .

V Merchant
Delhi



		EDITOR'S MAIL EDITOR'S COMMENT SAFFRON FALL SIGNALS FOR TELANGANA SAFFRON FALL FRANKLY SPEAKING LOK SABHA ELECTIONS STATE OF ECONOMY REALPOLITIK AGRARIAN DISTRESS BHOPAL GAS TRAGEDY PAST IN THE PRESENT MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK GLOBAL AFFAIRS KARTARPUR CORRIDOR HITS & MISSES BOOK BAZAAR SIGNS OF THE TIMES BOOK BAZAAR POLLUTION FALLOUT FOREST MANAGEMENT PATRIARCHAL BIAS IRANIAN FILMS A MIRROR TO SOCIETY ON RECORD ART OF LIVING Issue:January' 2018 Subscribe Now	EDITOR’S MAIL Advancing media ethics I would like to begin writing this letter with wishing the Editor of the prestigious Power Politics magazine and his team all success in the new year. Your magazine deserves a deep applause of the whole Nation for keeping up and advancing the media ethics of reporting facts objectively and developing bipartisan prescriptions for the decision-makers in the formal as well as nonformal sectors in our democracy. Your efforts are commendable indeed. Regrettably, this media ethics has been vanishing from a greater part of the media across the world . I hope other newspapers and magazines in our country would emulate your path for the betterment of our nation. As always in the past, the December issue of your magazine is superb from the viewpoint of media ethics . It offers highly credible analyses of almost all crucial issues before India and the world today. You have rightly stressed that we must accord our highest priority to the Nation in whatever we do. It is really shocking to learn from your magazine that there are so many allegedly criminal elements in our legislative bodies. I hope all those forces, who swear by our Constitution and believe that our parliamentary democracy must be meaningful in taking the Nation and its people forward, would seriously ponder over the likely dangerous implications of the presence of such criminals in our political system. We must do something substantial in this direction. The sooner , the better . Krishna Kabir Kolkata Capital punishment must end Supreme Court Ours is a state of advanced civilization. There can be no case for capital punishment in our times. There is a near consensus across the enlightened world public spectrum that this form of punishment must be abolished . The dominant thinking on the subject of capital punishemnt is we cannot give back to any convict his or her life if it were found tomorrow that the convict was not an offender in the case and was wrongly hanged to death. Besides, the law laid down in the Bachan Singh(1980) case that upholds the validity of the death penalty and laying down guidelines for awarding death in ‘the rarest of rare’ cases’ does not seem to work well on the operational plane. Experience is that different judges have awarded death sentence in an arbitrary manner . The public discourse can also come to influence a decision on this case. The Law Commission Report (2015) has admitted that the constitutional regulation of capital punishment has failed to prevent death sentences from being “arbitrarily and freakishly imposed”. It is high time our Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional. Vishnu J Chennai Border friction intact The Dalai Lama I wonder what our National Security Adviser Ajit Doval did during his recent visit to China for the 21st edition of Special Representatives talks. The resolution of the boundary dispute, for which this mechanism was created by our former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003 , is still nowhere in sight. Recently, one heard of the ‘Wuhan spirit’ and the effort to link up the two nations’ military headquarters and regional commands with hotlines. But nothing substantial has happened so far. The communist leadership in Beijing does not seem to be positive in the case of settling its border dispute with New Delhi ( and Thimpu). Beijing has resolved all its land borders disputes with other nations. Doval must not waste his time with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi. New Delhi must remain cautious . We must not overlook the possibilities of China’s cartographic designs. India has had borders with Tibet, not China. The Dalai Lama, the legitimate leader of Tibet, has been living in India. New Delhi would do well to take up the matter of the border issue with the Dalai. K Sudarshan Mumbai Powerful US-China linkages Donald J Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping Communist China and the United States are now trying to bridge their trade differences within 90 days. During their talks in Argentina last month, American President Donald J Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to halt slapping additional tariffs on each other. Under this 90-day truce Washington would not boost tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25% on January 1. Beijing would buy “very substantial” amount of agricultural, energy, industrial and other products from the United States. Xi agreed to designate the drug fentanyl as a controlled substance. Washington had raised concerns about the synthetic opioid being sent from China to the United States . The two sides would be addressing issues, including technology transfer, intellectual property, non-tariff barriers, and agriculture. New Delhi must understnad the pattern of relationship between the United States and China and develop its own relationships with each of the two powers. It should not expect too much from Washington. Common interests between China and the United States are too important for the latter to align itself with India at the cost of China . V Merchant Delhi