NEGOTIATING on home ground yields a tactical advantage. Recent history offers some examples. Take the pre-World War II war meetings between Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938. Hitler ensured that the talks were held in Germany — in his mountain eyrie of Berchtesgaden, at Bad Godesberg on the Rhine, and in

I have just returned from my hometown, Kanpur, after severing the last remaining physical link with my late parents, with the tangible legacies of my dad and mom. My mother passed away in 1994, my dad joined her in 2017. He left behind a lovely flat in a multi-story development, in which he had spent

As sole proprietor of Salt Desert Media/ Pippa Rann Books, why do I publish things with which I disagree? It is worth noting that I do so primarily where I feel that the work communicates a point of view that is soundly argued, well expressed, and should be heard. Let me explain that in the

Will there ever be peace on earth? Not in my lifetime. And not on this earth. World War II detonated in sequence: the Anschluss or annexation of Austria by Germany in March 1938; Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939; or Hitler’s incursion (with Stalin’s support) into Poland in September 1939. World War III began

This is the age of empty symbolism, make-believe and the suggestio falsi. Our revered Prime Minister goes trotting around the globe intoning “This is not the era of war” like a metronome, even as he almost started a war on his own doorstep, and repeatedly abstained from voting to stop two wars which have killed tens of

An optimist is one who believes in reincarnation. In that sense, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama is the supreme optimist. The title Dalai Lama – Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama – was bestowed in 1578 by Altan Khan (a descendant of Kublai Khan and the first Shunyi King of Ming China), on his