Wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified mark-uplanguage . Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative works including community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems and note services. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, came across the word 'wiki' while on honeymoon in Hawaii. The word means 'quick' . Jaya Srivastava, Uttar Pradesh

Breathtaking, these last few days in Egypt. What started with a scent of jasmine, the world's biggest Arab country trying to chase out a dictator, is now devolving into violent chaos and police-state terror. Smiling families one day, thugs on camelback the next. The brutal truth is this: where it ends in the cradle of civilisation will not be America's call. The particles of political energy are scrambled; to presume to know where they will realign is to think the sun can be kept from rising on a given day. But what we have in Egypt now, Tunisia last month, and perhaps Yemen in the days to come, is a fascinating real-time history lesson. "Stuff happens", as the negligently glib former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously said, but it doesn't happen in that part of the world because of American muscle. At least, not according to script. President Obama was right in his 2009 speech in Cairo, when he said, "Suppressing ideas never succeeds in maki...

Fifty-one matches involving 14 teams spread over six weeks. It seems the ICC has learnt nothing at all from World Cup 2007 in West Indies. That event was widely held to be the worst World Cup yet: dull, uneventful and excessively long. And so, in their wisdom, cricket's movers and shakers have switched to a format that promises to rob the tournament of even the tiny bit of excitement it managed to generate last time. Little wonder that Kevin Pietersen and several others are unhappy. The only possible explanation is that this is an attempt by the administrators to wring every last dollar from the entire exercise. Consider the format. The number of teams has actually been reduced from 16 to 14. But instead of using this to tighten up the tournament, the ICC has promptly decided on a format that renders the entire first month of matches meaningless. With just two groups of seven teams each, the established Test playing nations are almost guaranteed to go through to the quarterfin...

The demise of K Subrahmanyam, India's premier strategic guru and a frequent contributor to these pages, should be an occasion to reflect on what he frequently bemoaned - the absence of a strategic culture in the country, which often held it back from achieving its goals. If that situation has been somewhat remedied today, that is due in no small measure to Subrahmanyam's own intellectual and institutional contribution. India set up a National Security Council, for example, as late as 1999 - and that was partly in response to Subrahmanyam's tireless advocacy. A strategic culture fosters an objective assessment of national capabilities in the context of the geopolitical environment in which it operates, and lays out policy options guided by a long-term view of national interest - rather than being simply ad hoc or reactive, or dictated by sentimental or ideological considerations. Among Subrahmanyam's contributions to a pragmatic reorientation of India's foreign po...

The tumultuous events in Egypt this week, still unfolding as I write, have been commented upon by experts far more knowledgeable than I am about the Arab world. And yet there is one aspect of what has happened that none of the experts seems to have focused on something with wider global implications.Let me explain. Perhaps one of the more interesting sidelights of last weekends dramatic events in Cairo, as millions poured into Tahrir (Liberation) Square and the Egyptian police melted away in the face of demonstrators, looters, democrats and vandals alike, was the reaction of the Peoples Republic of China. Beijings official spokesperson on Sunday called for a return to order in Egypt, expressing concern at the troubles besieging this friendly country. Praying for calm, the Chinese government made it clear that the restoration of law and order was its principal priority.What made China once a reliable supporter of the cause of liberation for oppressed peoples seen as groaning un...

Following extensive interrogation of A Raja and his associates regarding procedural irregularities in the allotment of 2G licences, as well as the filing of the Shivraj Patil report understood to have blamed the former telecom minister and some of his aides for the irregularities, the CBI has moved to arrest Raja along with key aides Siddharth Behuria and R K Chandolia. The government appears at last to be walking the talk on corruption. The arrests should go some way towards correcting the impression that those with high political connections will always be protected against corruption charges, no matter how serious. The current political logjam - with opposition parties having stymied the functioning of Parliament - offers, in fact, the perfect opportunity to launch a clean-up. The DMK can't afford to part ways with the Congress at this point, with assembly elections coming up in Tamil Nadu. Both parties, as part of the UPA and the government, need to re-establish their credibi...

For some time now, green tape has appeared to replace red tape as the dreaded hurdle to industrial projects. The environment ministry's conditional nod to the $12 billion Posco steel project in Orissa comes as a much-needed signal that industrialisation and green conservation aren't mutually exclusive. India Inc has welcomed the move, and with reason. The South Korean steel major's foray is billed the biggest single-project FDI in India. The steel sector in particular will gain with boosted output, better product quality and introduction of the latest technology. But the decision has a broader impact as well. Had Posco's plans been nixed after waiting six years to take off, India's image as a high-returns investment destination would have taken a beating. The RBI recently said a dip in inbound FDI seemed linked to "environment-sensitive policies" and cited gridlocks faced by various projects involving mining, integrated townships and building of infra...