http://www.telegraphindia.comThe Telegraph - Calcutta (Kolkata) | Opinionen-usWed, 25 Nov 2009 18:29:53 GMTWed, 25 Nov 2009 18:29:53 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/1091126/jsp/opinion/story_11778894.jspBy the time this article is published, the president of India and supreme commander of the armed forces will have bestowed a singular honour on the armed forces by having flown in a Sukhoi combat aircraft. To anyone other than jet fighter pilots just the preparation for such a flight is forbidding, quite apart from the flight itself. The flying gear, the anti-gravitation suit, the survival kit, the heavy crash helmet and the stifling oxygen mask are but some of the tedious add-ons.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091126/jsp/opinion/story_11784528.jspThe rhetoric of India and the United States of America being natural allies, vintage 2009, received some substance when the prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, met the US president, Barack Obama, in Washington on Tuesday. There was the lurking fear that the bonhomie that existed between India and the US during the presidency of George W. Bush ' especially at the individual level between Mr Singh and Mr Bush ' would not endure during Mr Obama's term. All such gloomy predictions have been dispelled. The special partnership between the two countries was signed and sealed in the course of the meeting. At one level, there is nothing surprising in all this since the Indo-US nuclear deal had made it clear that the superpower was according to India a special status. But it was important for the new president and the prime minister to talk and recognize that they were on the same wavelength despite some amount of external crackle. What needs to be realized is that the goodwill between the two countries is actually based on common interests, the bedrock of all foreign policy decisions. The US needs India's cooperation to counter the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the growth of China as an economic giant. India needs the US to fight terrorism and to be placed at the high table of international relations. Both Mr Obama and Mr Singh expressed this commonality of interests in their different ways.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091126/jsp/opinion/story_11784364.jspWhen it comes to sugar, prices are not set by supply-demand equations, but by regulation, making it inefficient and possibly wasteful. Both houses of Parliament adjourned on the first day of the winter session after Opposition parties protested against the government's attempt to 'impose' fair and remunerative pricing on the sugar industry through an ordinance which sought to amend the Essential Commodities Act of 1955. The protests reflect the differences of opinion between two sets of people, both on the supply side: farmers who want better prices for their cane, and the millers and refiners who take issue with having to supply 20 per cent of their output to the public distribution system at a subsidized price of Rs 13.50 a kilogram. Basically, it is about which one of the two parties carries more of the risk relative to the other. The dispute stems from the multi-layered patchwork of regulation that rules the industry. It also has to do with the way different states not only price sugarcane ' and subsidize its production ' but how payment is settled between refiner and farmer, all of which come with a legacy. In all states except Maharashtra, farmers deposit their harvested sugarcane with refiners, who use them as and when needed. Terms of settlement are negotiated about six months after refiners receive the cane, and at a price that is mutually agreeable.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091126/jsp/opinion/story_11784366.jspBarack Obama may not have minded. But the authorities were taking no chances. After all, Chairman Mao isn't exactly a favourite with the Americans. So they hurriedly ordered the 'Oba-Mao' T- shirt that has become a hit here to be taken off the shelves, before the president of the United States of America reached Shanghai, his first stop. The shirt has Obama's face in place of Mao's, wearing the signature green Communist Party cap with a red star, and a green jacket. The Chinese characters on the shirt spelt out one of Mao's most popular sayings: "Serve the people.'' But the authorities weren't fast enough ' a CNN reporter covering the US president's visit last week was holding one of the T-shirts up for the camera when security men pounced on her and tried to snatch it away.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091126/jsp/opinion/story_11784367.jspA year ago, ten gunmen took a city hostage for nearly three days and pushed a nation into a deadly void. That city was Mumbai, and the country, Pakistan. But what impact did 26/11 have on India? Thinking back on the political record of the past one year, the answer is pretty obvious and just as baffling: not much.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091126/jsp/opinion/story_11779072.jspNothing usually changes in Mumbai except the real estate. Being the commercial capital of India and being the biggest investment banking headquarters of South Asia, Mumbai is a natural target for any organization bent on hitting the Indian economy. As the headquarter of the western naval command, coast guards and various intelligence agencies, Mumbai and its surrounding area have never had any dearth of operational forces, but always suffered due to the absence of those two crucial requirements ' cooperation and coordination. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091126/jsp/opinion/story_11788344.jspI had watched the horror of 26/11 unfold on television. I still remember staring at the screen, confounded with fear and rage, watching vignettes of a burning dome, hospital walls pockmarked by bullet-holes and a seemingly unceasing trail of violence. I also cannot forget being shown an injured man near the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus being taken to hospital; a television reporter from a national channel caught hold of his blood-spattered wrist and thrust it near the camera.