RESEARCH

The establishment of NITI Aayog is a clear message that the government is committed to reforms, decentralization and a cooperative federalism that advocates involving states in the Centre’s decision making. I n what can be seen as the greatest policy shift by the new dispensation, the NDA government has begun the year 2015 with scrapping of the Soviet-modelled Planning Commission with NITI Aayog. While “niti” sounds like the Sanskrit-origin word implying “policy” and “ethics”, it’s actually an acronym for National Institution for Transforming India.   Swarajya was the first media outlet to forecast the change rather than speculate what it would be like: “…the Planning Commission will soon morph into a body that facilitates coordination between the Centre and the states.It will certainly not be a planning organ by another name, and it will not be a typical think-tank as is being speculated in the media,” read our 23 October article on the issue. And that is precisely

I n the midst of mourning in the subcontinent and inexplicable silence of the Arab world following the Peshawar attack where 132 children were butchered by terrorists came Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s justification for the massacre that is likely to lead to impressionable minds among Muslims seeing religious reason in violence and those among Hindus seeing Islam as an evil faith. Official statement from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan after the Peshawar massacre The message in Urdu above (in white on black background) issued by the terrorist outfit reads: “ T ā lib ā n ke tarjum ā n Muhammad Khur ā s ā ni: k ā kahn ā hai ke muj ā hidi:n ko hid ā y ā t di: gai: th ĩ: ke woh sirf baRe bachch õ k ā qit ā l karẽː. Pesh ā war ki: k ā rw ā i: sunnat-e-nabvi: kay a’in mut ā biq hai ky õ ke Nabi: kari:m ne bhi: Banu Qurayzah ke qit ā l kay waqt yahi: shart-e-mub ā rak ā’ id ki thi: ke sirf un bachch õ ko qatl kiy ā j ā e jin ke zer n ā f b ā l dikh ā i den ā shuru: h