By Tukoji rR Pandit    
New Delhi (Syndicate Features): The aging Shiv Sena tiger Bal Thackeray can be called the country’s uncrowned king of hate-politics. It is part of his ‘duty’ to excel in incendiary, irresponsible and unacceptable rhetoric either through utterances before crowds of fawning Sainiks or his edits and columns in the party organ, Saamna. His latest farman is for Hindus to form suicide squads to counter ‘Islamic terrorism’. What he says amounts to a call to Hindus to raise an Al Qaeda type of terrorist organisation. 

By Tushar Charan     
New Delhi (Syndicate Features): President George W. Bush wants to see the US lift the ‘outdated and counter-productive’ restrictions on offshore drilling, imposed since early 1980s ostensibly to protect US tourism and prevent environmental damage from possible oil spills. Ironically, his father, the senior Bush, had introduced a moratorium on coastal oil exploitation though he had restricted the ban to the western and central Gulf of Mexico region.

By Vinod Vedi     
New Delhi (Syndicate Features): Events in   Bangladesh could well be described as the mirror image of what had happened in Pakistan over the past decade under General Pervez Musharraf or as the product of the natural progression that is inherent in military dictatorships and "army-backed” governments. The commonality is uncanny.

By I. Ramamohan Rao New Delhi: Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, popularly known in the Army as Sam Bahadur , who passed away on June 27, will live long in the memory of the people of India and inspire generations of officers in the country.