Above the fold: Top stories of the day
1. As the floodwaters receded, the toll in Tamil Nadu rose to 450 on Sunday.
2. The National Commission for Backward Classes says it is prepared to include the poor among the upper castes in the Other Backward Classes list.
3. TS Thakur, newly appointed chief justice of India, said on Sunday that the judiciary and the rule of law protected all communities from intolerance.
The Big Story: Talking Kashmir
After overtures in Paris, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, were spotted having a brief tete a tete, the national security advisers of India and Pakistan met in Bangkok. The meeting signals the end of the diplomatic deadlock reached after the Ufa meet in Russia in July. It is also a break from the usual spectacle of a bilateral meet. Bangkok was low-key, insulated from the jingoism of the media and other domestic constituencies, flowing out of diplomatic back channels kept open even when all public ties are snapped.
It was perhaps the relative quiet of Bangkok that allowed both parties to raise an issue kept on the backburner for so long: Kashmir. Back in July, bilateral talks had broken down because the Pakistani side had insisted on meeting Hurriyat leaders first. While Pakistan had said it was part of protocol, India had held firm on its new "red line" – no such meetings could take place before official talks. With the NSAs meeting in a third country, both protocol and brinkmanship were circumvented. More significantly, India seems to have realised the limits of its old strategy: step up cooperation on other fronts and talk around Kashmir, hoping the problem would solve itself as bilateral ties improved. While Pakistan had been urging that Kashmir be restored to the agenda for talks, India had refused, insisting that the two countries focus on terror instead. In Bangkok, it relented, and the NSAs talked both Kashmir and terror.
The joint official statement issued after Bangkok is thin on details, saying only that terror, security, Jammu and Kashmir as well as trouble on the Line of Control had been discussed. The secrecy is perhaps necessary for now. But moving ahead, both governments will have to take into account domestic constituencies of opinion on Kashmir.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's big story
MK Bhadrakumar argues that while the prime minister has made several high profile foreign trips, India's ties with its neighbours have reached a new low.
Politicking and policying
1. Three months after Dadri, the sons of Mohammad Akhlaq met Uttar Pradesh Chief MInister Akhilesh Yadav and reportedly said they were happy with the ongoing investigation and wanted no further probe.
2. India gets ready to play hardball in Paris as Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar says he would ensure rich countries paid their dues for climate change.
3. In Bhopal on Sunday, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia expressed confidence that Modi would deliver on the poll promise of a Ram Temple.
Punditry
1. In the Indian Express, Nirupama Subramanian on how Chennai residents were forced to rely on their own fortitude as the government went missing during the floods.
2. In the Hindu, Baradwaj Rangan on the many lives displaced by the Chennai rains.
3. In the Telegraph, Mukul Kesavan on the bigotry of Donald Trump and the consolidation of a majoritarian political base in both India and the United States.
Don't Miss...
Geeta Doctor remembers life in Shivaji Park, once a thriving Indian enclave in Karachi:
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1. As the floodwaters receded, the toll in Tamil Nadu rose to 450 on Sunday.
2. The National Commission for Backward Classes says it is prepared to include the poor among the upper castes in the Other Backward Classes list.
3. TS Thakur, newly appointed chief justice of India, said on Sunday that the judiciary and the rule of law protected all communities from intolerance.
The Big Story: Talking Kashmir
After overtures in Paris, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, were spotted having a brief tete a tete, the national security advisers of India and Pakistan met in Bangkok. The meeting signals the end of the diplomatic deadlock reached after the Ufa meet in Russia in July. It is also a break from the usual spectacle of a bilateral meet. Bangkok was low-key, insulated from the jingoism of the media and other domestic constituencies, flowing out of diplomatic back channels kept open even when all public ties are snapped.
It was perhaps the relative quiet of Bangkok that allowed both parties to raise an issue kept on the backburner for so long: Kashmir. Back in July, bilateral talks had broken down because the Pakistani side had insisted on meeting Hurriyat leaders first. While Pakistan had said it was part of protocol, India had held firm on its new "red line" – no such meetings could take place before official talks. With the NSAs meeting in a third country, both protocol and brinkmanship were circumvented. More significantly, India seems to have realised the limits of its old strategy: step up cooperation on other fronts and talk around Kashmir, hoping the problem would solve itself as bilateral ties improved. While Pakistan had been urging that Kashmir be restored to the agenda for talks, India had refused, insisting that the two countries focus on terror instead. In Bangkok, it relented, and the NSAs talked both Kashmir and terror.
The joint official statement issued after Bangkok is thin on details, saying only that terror, security, Jammu and Kashmir as well as trouble on the Line of Control had been discussed. The secrecy is perhaps necessary for now. But moving ahead, both governments will have to take into account domestic constituencies of opinion on Kashmir.
The Big Scroll: Scroll.in on the day's big story
MK Bhadrakumar argues that while the prime minister has made several high profile foreign trips, India's ties with its neighbours have reached a new low.
Politicking and policying
1. Three months after Dadri, the sons of Mohammad Akhlaq met Uttar Pradesh Chief MInister Akhilesh Yadav and reportedly said they were happy with the ongoing investigation and wanted no further probe.
2. India gets ready to play hardball in Paris as Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar says he would ensure rich countries paid their dues for climate change.
3. In Bhopal on Sunday, Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia expressed confidence that Modi would deliver on the poll promise of a Ram Temple.
Punditry
1. In the Indian Express, Nirupama Subramanian on how Chennai residents were forced to rely on their own fortitude as the government went missing during the floods.
2. In the Hindu, Baradwaj Rangan on the many lives displaced by the Chennai rains.
3. In the Telegraph, Mukul Kesavan on the bigotry of Donald Trump and the consolidation of a majoritarian political base in both India and the United States.
Don't Miss...
Geeta Doctor remembers life in Shivaji Park, once a thriving Indian enclave in Karachi:
"One day, an odd thing happened in our Karachi house. The towels in my father’s bathroom were of the thin woven variety used in Kerala, known as Thorths. Only he used them to dry his thick black curly hair. Suddenly, they were streaked with red stains.
“Blood!” reported the servants. The house was built on a ground that belonged to a Pir, or holy man. It was his spirit that was manifesting itself on the blood-stained Thorths.
My mother conducted pujas. Sheila Dayal, the wife of then Indian High Commissioner Rajeshwar Dayal, came and conducted a session of devotional songs using her training as a classical singer. The towels became a topic of conversation among the residents of Shivaji Park.
My father, however, remained silent. It seemed as if he had promised the dead Pir never to reveal the secret of the blood-stained towels – not even to his wife."