The Hindu Editorial

TOPIC – An eviction in Sri Lanka, this day, that age As societies overwhelmed by the novel coronavirus pandemic witness heightening fear, economic deprivation, and a persisting curtailment of public events, remembering the past to chart...

TOPIC – Mt. Everest: Learn From Tragedy, Tighten Safety Measures “It’s Obvious Why So Many Try To Scale Everest — But The Safety Protocol Must...

TOPIC – In the U.S., it could go either way With scarcely two weeks of campaigning remaining before voting day in the U.S. presidential election, it...

TOPIC – Secrets And Agents: Arrest Of Assange “The Arrest Of Julian Assange Raises Fears About Suppression Of The Right To Information” The arrest of Julian Assange,...

TOPIC – A slim stimulus Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fresh set of measures, on Monday, to spur consumer demand and capital expenditure include an interesting lydesigned...

TOIC – Blooded in battle and fighting in the shadows On November 14, the elite Special FrontierForce (SFF) will turn 58. For an organisation thathas served India for close tosix decades and played some pivotal roles in key momentsof Indian history, from liberating Bangladesh to fightingin the Kargil war, the SFF has scrupulously stayed out ofthe headlines.The death of an SFF soldier on August 30, who wasdeployed along the recentlytense Line of Actual Control(LAC) that separates Indiaand China, has now shed thespotlight on the SFF and its predominantly Tibetan soldiers. Company Leader Nyima Tenzin was killed in anaccidental mine blast whenhe stepped over a vintage 1962 minefield during patrolling in Ladakh, accordingto Army sources.His untimely death, andthe deployment of the SFFamid the recent tensionswith China, has not onlybrought unexpected attention to the highly trained andelite force, but also emergedas a source of pride for India’s Tibetan community, asunderlined by a video fromSeptember 4 that showed Tibetans in Shimla gathering,singing, and tying their traditional khatas(white scarves)to a departing convoy as theywaved goodbye to SFF personnel headed for the Ladakh front.The limelight is certainlyunusual for an elite outfittrained to working in the shadows. And it’s in the shadowswhere the SFF has mostly operated since its creation in1962. The SFF’s antecedents,in fact, even predate 1962.This is a story that goes backto the mid1950s, when Tibetan resistance fighters begancrossing over into India starting with the 1956 uprising.More fighters would follow,in the wake of the faileduprising three years laterand the Dalai Lama’s exile toIndia. The first challenge was finding a base, recalls his son Inspector General (IG) GurdipSingh Uban (retd), who wasthen a Second Lieutenant,aged 22, and decided to helpout his father. “We hired ataxi from Delhi and drove toChakrata where my father knew wasan old Gurkha trainingcentre that was lying vacant,”he told TheHindu. “It had allthe wherewithal — barracks,training grounds, and mostimportantly, it had trainingareas such as rock climbingand was at a height of 7,000feet. And there the storybegan.”The unit was raised on November 14, 1962 — on Nehru’sbirthday. Exactly a week later, China would announce its “unilateral ceasefire”, so the unit would see no action in the war. In any case, theywere hardly ready for action.Mr. Uban said his fatherfirst called the outfit Establishment 22, named afterhis old Mountain Regimentthat he was particularly fond of. The ‘twotwos’, as theywould be known, would beall paratroopers — an eliteunit capable of highaltitudwarfare, special operations, and fighting behind enemy lines. They would report to the Cabinet Secretariat, andwere not part of the Army. Awomen’s wing was also created. He recalled the passion ofthe first cohort. “What reallystruck me was both the angerand shame, of what happened to Tibet and the Dalai Lama, who was a god for them,” he said. “And alsotheir incredible athleticism. Ithink Tibetans are blessedwith genetics, which is whythe PLA was always afraidthey couldn’t compete withthem.”  In 1967, Establishment 22 was expanded and renamed the Special Frontier Force. Mr. Uban revealed the storybehind the name. “Special,because they were SpecialForces . Weused the word ‘frontier’ because my family belonged to the Hazara district of the...

TOPIC – New Order In West Asia The so-called Abraham Accords, signed in the White House on Tuesday by the UAE, Bahrain and Israel, under U.S....

TOPIC – An eviction in Sri Lanka, this day, that age As societies overwhelmed by the novel coronavirus pandemic witness heightening fear, economic deprivation, and a persisting curtailment of public events, remembering the past to chart...

TOPIC – At 75, the UN needs a rebirth October 24 marks the diamond jubilee of the United Nations. But far from joyous celebration, it is...

TOPIC – In the U.S., it could go either way With scarcely two weeks of campaigning remaining before voting day in the U.S. presidential election, it...

TOPIC – A slim stimulus Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s fresh set ofmeasures, on Monday, to spur consumer demand and capital expenditureinclude an interestinglydesigned tweak to the...

TOPIC – Vanquishing viruses (The Nobel Prize for Medicine is an inspirationto researchers working on SARS­CoV­2) At a time when the world is faced with multiple assaults from a frighteningly obscure virus, it cannot be mere coincidence that the Nobel Committee decided to anoint three scientists who peeled the layers off another virus that confounded generations of physicians the Hepatitis C virus (HCV). The 2020 Nobel Prize...

TOPIC Mixedsignals “(The latest GST data give cause for hope of a sustainable momentum in growth)” In these pandemic-hit times, when most economic news has been grim, the latest GST data give cause for some hope, albeit cautious, especially to policy makers...

TOPIC – Justice in ruins  “(India cannot afford successive judicialsetbacks to secular values and the rule of law)” TheruinsoftheBabriMasjidwereclearedinrecordtimebythehordesofvandals mobilized fordemolishing it. Some detritus was still left, though: a belief among many that justice would be done and the Constitution and the rule of...

TOPIC – Two speeches The speeches at the UN General Assembly, by Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, and a day later by  Prime Minister Narendra Modi, were a study in contrasts. Mr. Modi focused on India’s own role on the world stage and the need to reform the UN and expand the...

TOPIC – New Order In West Asia The so-called Abraham Accords, signed in the White House on Tuesday by the UAE, Bahrain and Israel, under U.S....

TOPIC – Digital disconnect The full report of the NSO’s survey of ‘Household Social Consumption on Education in India’, for July 2017­June 2018, highlights the poor...

Topic of the day:- Mt. Everest: Learn From Tragedy, Tighten Safety Measures “It’s Obvious Why So Many Try To Scale Everest — But The Safety...

TOPIC – Crisis Defused: On Hindi Imposition “Compulsory Learning Should Be Limited To The Child’s Mother Tongue” The Centre has moved quickly to defuse a potentially volatile controversy over the...

TOPIC – In the U.S., it could go either way With scarcely two weeks of campaigning remaining before voting day in the U.S. presidential election, it...

TOPIC – Financing Economic Recovery As the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic spread across Asia and the Pacific, finance ministries are continuing their efforts to inject trillions...

TOPIC – At 75, the UN needs a rebirth October 24 marks the diamond jubilee of the United Nations. But far from joyous celebration, it is...