Word: advani
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...APPOINTED. LAL KRISHNA ADVANI, 74, India's Hindu nationalist Home Minister, as Deputy Prime Minister; in New Delhi. Widely perceived as a right-wing hard-liner, Advani remains the main strategist of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (bjp). He has long been the de facto No. 2 to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and his new designation appears to formalize his position as successor...
...that of Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, a longtime colleague. A Western diplomat characterizes him as "half dead." At a rare press conference last month in Srinagar, the PM tottered onto the podium and apparently had trouble understanding questions. He asked repeatedly for whispered prompts from Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and stumbled over his replies. Says a B.J.P. official: "He is very alert when he is functional. But there are very few hours like that, and being a Prime Minister, unfortunately, is a 24-hour job." Asked if he suffered from any serious ailment, Vajpayee once replied...
...term, which ends in 2004. With Vajpayee fading in mind and spirit, many wonder who wields the real power in India. Vajpayee's shadowy right-hand man and national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, has the Prime Minister's ear. But consensus has it that it is the hawkish Advani, 72, his B.J.P. colleague of 50 years and heir apparent, who increasingly calls the shots...
...subcontinental context, that kind of statement is a license for the killings to continue. According to diplomatic sources, the burden of the crisis made Vajpayee unwell. Adds Vinod Mehta, editor-in-chief of the Indian weekly Outlook magazine, Advani and his supporters used the illness to gather the party's hard-line core and read him the riot act. "The party basically gave him no room to maneuver," says Mehta. "He knew he could have lost his job and he had neither the spirit nor the physical strength to fight back. So he just gave up his moderate stance...
...With an enfeebled Vajpayee at the helm, the prospect of war with Pakistan becomes more real. "Advani would really like to finish this proxy war, and perhaps do a bit more," says one diplomat. India has none of the checks and balances designed during the cold war to prevent a nuclear launch in anger. (Although India's military is comfortingly professional, nonpolitical and obedient to civilian control. The country's nukes are controlled by government scientists, and deployment orders come from the Prime Minister's office alone.) For his part, Advani denies any undue influence, or even...