http://www.telegraphindia.comThe Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinionen-usTue, 24 Nov 2009 18:44:52 GMTTue, 24 Nov 2009 18:44:52 GMTThe Telegraph Webdeskttfeedback@abpmail.comttfeedback@abpmail.comOpinionCopyright (C) 2009, The Telegraph. All rights reserved.http://www.telegraphindia.com/images/logo_small.gifhttp://www.telegraphindia.comhttp://www.telegraphindia.com/1091125/jsp/opinion/story_11783574.jspAs the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, was getting his final briefings in New Delhi last week on the progress in negotiations with the Americans on an agreement for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, India received support from an unexpected quarter. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters in New York that India requires nuclear power to meet its energy needs if it is to effectively tackle climate change. "If you look at countries like India … which are highly reliant on coal I really don't see us coming to grips with climate change at a global level without nuclear energy playing a role," he said with unexpected candour.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091125/jsp/opinion/story_11779585.jspIt was the evening of India's horror, and its memory and images refuse to go away even one year after the event. The terrorist attack on Mumbai on the evening of November 26, 2008, is an event that imposed itself on the nation's memory because of the sheer daring of the attackers, the destruction and killing they carried out, and the slow reactions of the Indian State and its various law-enforcing agencies in counteracting the terrorists and rescuing those who had been held hostage in the two principal hotels of Mumbai. These factors should not deflect attention from the fact that the event also saw acts of great heroism, fortitude, sacrifice and human kindness. The nation's character had been put to the test, it seems in retrospect. The State had been found wanting; the common soldier and policemen and ordinary men and women doing their duty had emerged triumphant.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091125/jsp/opinion/story_11779561.jspA rebel group's ability to kill people and strike terror is no measure of its strength or popularity. It may be premature to dismiss the United Liberation Front of Asom as a spent force. But few in Assam doubt that it has lost much of its popular appeal and even its capacity for major armed offensives. Its latest strike in Nalbari does not alter these basic facts. The Ulfa's latest act of violence is better understood as a desperate ploy to try and wriggle out of a major organizational crisis. Two of its senior leaders were arrested in Dhaka earlier this month. The outfit's leaders may have anticipated a crackdown on their hideouts in Bangladesh after Sheikh Hasina Wajed's return as prime minister. Most of its shelters in Bhutan had earlier been destroyed in joint raids by Indian and Bhutanese authorities. The loss of its old shelters and hideouts is, however, not the most important setback for the group. The Ulfa's worst crisis seems to be its near-total alienation from the common people of Assam. The violence in Nalbari does not change the fact that the Ulfa has never been as weak and as directionless as it is now. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091125/jsp/opinion/story_11760049.jspI winced at the newspaper's summary of its editorial: "Tony Blair would be a charismatic figurehead" ' for the European Union ' "but...." My main objection was political: I found it grotesque that an independent Europe could even think of giving its top job to a past poodle of the White House. But I had another objection: charismatic.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091125/jsp/opinion/story_11783572.jspManu Sharma, who is serving the sentence of life imprisonment for the 1999 murder of model Jessica Lal, was recently out on parole for two months. No one would probably have known about his parole had he not got involved in a brawl at a night club and that too with a high-ranking police officer's son. The media pounced on the incident, questioning the rightness or otherwise of the parole granted to him, and subsequently, Sharma, who is the son of a Congress politician, quietly slunk back into jail.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091125/jsp/opinion/story_11783573.jspQ: My father was murdered in 1980. My mother, the only eyewitness to the case, had lodged the first information report (FIR). Though an arrest warrant was issued against the accused, he has been absconding all these years. But now we have finally traced the accused. We informed the concerned superintendent of police and officer in charge of the police station about this in May, 2009. But they cannot locate the file containing the FIR, the chargesheet, the copy of warrant, etc, in the court office. Details such as the case number, the name and address of the accused are registered in the General Records (GR) office. Will the accused walk free all because the documents seem to have disappeared?