| This is the eighth consecutive week that we have put Kargil
on the cover. It is unprecedented in our 24 years in the business of news. And as the war
appears to have come to its conclusion, we decided to do some stocktaking of what the
Kargil conflict was all about. In this issue, we look at the entire spread of the two-month war: how it began, the
chronology of failures and successes, diplomatic moves, political handling, exclusive
images of the war, inside stories of battles and the mood of the nation. And, the road
ahead from Kargil. Over the past few weeks,
teams of our correspondents and photographers have risked their lives to spend time at the
battlefront, helping us bring you exclusive reports. For this issue, we sent Associate
Editors Harinder Baweja and Rohit Brijnath and Deputy Chief Photographer Pramod Pushkarna
to record the endgame at Kargil from the soldier's eye view. They spent many days with
troops, living their war, soaking up their tragedies and triumphs. Says Brijnath:
"It's a bizarre, brutal war being fought in a serene place." Adds Baweja who,
like Pushkarna, has spent close to a month in the battle zones: "This war is about
the young leading from the front, dying and winning the war for India."
With election dates announced the country now goes from the
bullet to the ballot, and our wayward politicians would do well to absorb lessons that our
soldiers from all over India have taught us at enormous cost: India goes beyond caste,
religion and region, and that making a personal sacrifice for the greater good is the
example to follow.
(Aroon Purie) |
