Year-end musings
By all accounts, 2007 hasn't been a very good year for Bengal. The yearkicked off with the unsavoury incident of clashes between the army and police,in which the city's cops came out as a cowardly, corrupt, high-handed andundisciplined force. Then, there was the clash at Nandigram that escalated intoa full-blown battle between the CPI(M) and opposition forces, claiming manylives, displacing thousands and bringing a bad name to the state. There weremany ugly and unfortunate incidents that pockmarked the year and, if anything,2007 could well be marked out in history as the year when Bengal stumbled andfell while taking faltering steps towards industrialisation and rejuvenation.