It was almost a palace coup in reverse. With the cool, crisp disdain of a modern-day Victoria, India's Rajmata of Gwalior informed the governor of the state of Madhya Pradesh last week that 36 members of the state's ruling Congress Party had defected to her opposition United Front Party. That gave the Rajmata, who is 47 and as tough a politician as they come, a clear majority in the 296-mem-ber state legislature. Flabbergasted, the governor suspended the legislature indefinitely, ...

The British raj, which once controlled India's northwest frontier province of Kashmir, exacted a token annual tribute of two Kashmiri shawls and three handkerchiefs from the maharajah. Never since has the price of peace been as small. In the years after independence in 1947 split the Indian subcontinent into the sovereign states of India and Pakistan, the two nations have paid with strife and bloodshed to establish their conflicting claims over the disputed region. Last week, after 15 years of bitter wrangling, Indian and Pakistani delegates finally met ...

Can the U.N. play a proactive role in the economic crisis we are witnessing right now? Sekari Vaidy SUNNYVALE, CALIF. The goal of the U.N. is to promote harmonious development throughout the world. We welcome industrialized countries' stimulus packages, but at the same time they should never lose sight of the plight of billions of other people, the poorest of the poor. What can individuals do to halt the global climate crisis? Carl Sack, VANCOUVER Climate change is the defining ...

Punjab Province in India was curry-hot with religious conflicts and revolts against British rule until 1937, when moderate Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, member of a distinguished Moslem family, became Premier of the Punjab. By straightforward administration and sense-making pleas for Hindu-Moslem unity, he succeeded in uniting the major political parties of the Punjab's 28 millions—56% Moslems, 27% Hindu, 13% warrior Sikhs—into a coalition Government which brought internal peace to the Province and has raised 500,-ooo troops to fight the Axis. ...

Hurtling toward modernity, how will India package itself to the world? Indian Accent, currently New Delhi's trendiest temple of disposable income, offers preliminary indications — in ways entirely edible, if not always delectable. Amid the hip surroundings of the Manor hotel, former Taj chain chef Manish Mehrotra, having opened pan-Asian pacesetters in New Delhi and London, serves what he terms "Indian food for the 21st century." Like much fusion cuisine, it doesn't always work. The chicken tikka quesadillas, ...

There are few finer views of the new India than from the cliff-top terrace of manufacturing magnates Parmeshwar and Adi Godrej. At night on the horizon, like a diamond necklace, streetlights trace a shoreline curve past the high-rise bank offices and apartment blocks of downtown Bombay, skirt the bars, gyms and boutiques of Marine Drive, and encircle Chowpatty Beach, ending in the rocky surf below. On a warm, monsoon night this summer, the pool lights ...

INDIA Gandhi Foregoes Independence India's native leaders present a spectacle not unlike a steeplechase. They are all headed for the same finish line—independence from Great Britain. At the risk of breaking their necks at the various hurdles, fences, hedges and ditches interposed along the course by Britain, they compete for the No. 1 position. Sometimes this competition is so bitter that they lose sight of the finish and run off the course. Most remarkable single fact about this strange race: ...

India's festering sun beat down impartially on New and Old Delhi—on the precisely geometric, grandly drab preserves of the British Raj, on the noisy, squalid, sprawling native town. A sweat-soaked British wallah might change his shirt four times before settling down to an evening burra peg of bad Australian whiskey in the garden of the Cecil Hotel. Even the calloused, naked feet of shirtless Indians burned as they padded along the teeming Chandni Chauk. In the brassy glare, the ...

A day after President Barack Obama publicly endorsed India's claim to a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley poured cold water on any expectation of New Delhi's elevation anytime soon. "It is inconceivable that you could contemplate U.N. Security Council reform without considering a country like India," Crowley said Tuesday. "But we have to recognize ... this is a process that has been going on for some time, and it ...

By sheer demographics, it's the world's most important relationship. China and India comprise 40% of humanity and boast economies that are expected to loom large over the 21st century. They also represent two of the world's fastest-growing militaries, armed with nuclear weapons, and are expanding their spheres of influence across oceans. Jonathan Holslag, a Brussels-based scholar of Chinese foreign policy and author of the recent book China and India: Prospects for Peace, is among a growing number ...