Monday, 16 August 2004, 1700 hrs

NATION & STATES
I-Day: Militants set off bomb
in Assam, kill 13
At least 13 people, including seven school children, were killed, and 35 others injured in a bomb explosion at an official Independence Day function in Assam’s Dhemaji town on Sunday...

BUSINESS & ECONOMY
Ticklish issues in oil pricing
The value-based duty may have fetched handsome revenue in near-term but...

FEATURED STORIES

Manushi
The life and times of Bharat Mata
The image of the dispossessed motherland found form in Kiran Chandra Bandyopadhyay's 1873 play, Bharat Mata, that influentially entered into early nationalist memory. But very soon the terms of engagement and iconographic vocabulary shifted to the form of the goddess. SADAN JHA traces the emergence of nationalism as invented history.

Outlook
What if India hadn't been partitioned?

It is a very big 'What if?' AINSLIE T. EMBREE lists out how our leaders' ideals might have worked out, with advantage to all the people of South Asia.

Deccan Chronicle
Have some faith
Religion has many dimensions. For most people it is simply a matter of fact. They were born in a particular faith and see no reason to step outside their ancestral code of belief. The belief hinges on the two mysteries that cap either side of life: birth and death. People find a meaning in life only in the answer to two questions: why are we born and what happens after death? By M J AKBAR

Hindustan Times
Peace with Pakistan?
In Pakistan, the army has its own vested interests and they don’t always coincide with those of the people of that country, writes VIR SANGHVI

The Pioneer
Preceptor and his adoration
Shri Ramakrishna Paramhans is remembered above all else as the guru of Swami Vivekanand. His one preoccupation in life was God realisation. A look at the essentials of his life on his 118th death anniversary (August 16).

TOP PICKS

OPINION
Ghost of Kargil (Tribune)
Gowda and Krishna: letter wars (Tribune)
Pak and US: Losing the initiative (Dawn)
Thoughts for 58th I-Day (Deccan Chronicle)
Salutary safeguards (Businessline)
Sweeten the sugar policy (BL)

INSCRIPTIONS

South Indian Inscriptions

Original texts from four states, transcribed from a definitive work published by the Archaeological Survey of India

Volume 10
Telugu Inscriptions
from Andhra Pradesh

Volume 3 (Part I and II)
Miscellaneous Inscriptions
in Tamil
(Will be uploaded soon)

ONLY ON WHAT IS INDIA

What is India ABSTRACTS

COMING SOON!

This column will feature annotated abstracts of editorials and opinions published in newspapers across India

BUSINESS HEADLINES

RBI vows to check inflation

Buyers stay away from bourses

SEB trips on poor book-keeping

Hindustan Motors sales up 34.6 pc

Safety first in biotech policy

Big banks wary of co-op cousins

CPM to oppose oil price hike