30 January 2006
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From the Editor…
Welcome to the New Statesman website. Whether you are a new reader or an existing one - online or via the magazine - I hope you'll enjoy the great writing, fresh ideas and provocative debate that make the New Statesman Britain's award-winning current affairs weekly
Cover story
A new sort of superpower
Introduction - India's dream of national strength and wealth is now a reality: its superpower status is indisputable. Yet it is rejecting cultural uniformity, writes Pankaj Mishra. It will be a long time before it is fully modern - and this may be a very good thing
Features
Losing the plot
Exclusive - As Blair's anti-terror plan unravels, secret e-mails show that even ministers and intelligence chiefs are questioning one of its key elements
Regulars
Mark Thomas dispenses doorstep justice
When the state starts arresting people with iced cakes, it really is time to change the law, or for ministers to start wearing khaki
Lindsey Hilsum meets Arafat's heir
"I think Marwan Barghouti is a terrorist," said the Israeli prison officer. "But in the end, he must be released"
Commons Confidential
Village life - Kevin Maguire warns George
A Monty Python moment over Iran, and trouble for the artist formerly known as an MP
Competition
Win vouchers to spend at any Tesco store
Culture
Skin deep
From soup cans to film stars, Andy Warhol found a new kind of beauty in the trashy and transient. Charles Shaar Murray on the inventor of our celebrity culture
An unexpected light
Art - When Dan Flavin abandoned paint for fluorescent tubes, he turned galleries into glowing cathedrals
Monkeymania
Pop - Lynsey Hanley wonders if the "biggest band since Oasis" aren't just a bunch of overhyped teenagers
Radio
The radio column - Rachel Cooke
Winifred Robinson is thrown away on fabric softener, as this superb documentary proved
Theatre
Michael Portillo - Down to earth
Theatre - A refreshing new Ireland emerges in this lively work, writes Michael Portillo O Go My Man Royal Court, London SW1, and touring
Film
Victoria Segal - Patriot games
Film - Hollywood's top director makes a troubled foray into politics, writes Victoria Segal Munich (15)
Television
Andrew Billen - Dead romantic
Television - We owe our sentiment over the whale to Wordsworth and co, writes Andrew Billen The Romantics (BBC2)
Books
Beyond 'confident'
Writing - Since Midnight's Children, Indian writing in English has been lauded for a new self-confidence. The buzzword is misplaced: true creativity should be self-questioning, argues Amit Chaudhuri
Tainted love. For writers of colonial fiction, Africa held a dark erotic attraction, even if the message underlying their work was that Europeans have no place there. By Jason Cowley
Tropic Moon Georges Simenon (translated by Marc Romano) New York Review Books, 133pp, £6.99 ISBN 159017111X
Dream ticket
Innocent When You Dream: Tom Waits, the collected interviews Edited by Mac Montandon Orion, 394pp, £14.99 ISBN 0752873946
On the margins
Guardians of Power: the myth of the liberal media David Edwards and David Cromwell Pluto Press, 241pp, £14.99 ISBN 0745324827
Fiction - Young pretender
The Third Brother Nick McDonell Atlantic Books, 267pp, £10.99 ISBN 1843544776
Commentary
Books about horrific personal experiences have come to dominate the bestseller lists. But the idea that such works represent the unvarnished "truth" is far from justified, finds Kira Cochrane
