After Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was sentenced to death by the Tsar of Russia for alleged royal subversion, some intuitive conviction in the great writer bordering Extra Sensory Perception told him for sure that he will not be hanged.
On the morning of execution, promulgation came out from the palace sparing Dostoevsky and fellow convicts from the rope and deporting them to cold prisons in Siberia. The whole thing was a drama (mock execution) and on the night before the same, it was noted by the author that the hair of his prison inmate, a fellow-convict, turned grey out of excessive anxiety. The palace circle which staged the drama even deliberated at length whether or not to dig graves in advance just to add a realistic punch to the whole episode.
The outcome: Dostoyevsky and his inmates thanked King profusely and remained indebted to the King for the rest of their lives even as they labored hard in Siberia. (Dostoyevsky even wrote a poem in praise of His Highness while he was in prison.)
While India’s vote at the UNHRC was against Sri Lanka, and marked a paradigm shift in its stand pertaining to country-specific resolutions, the vote against Sri Lanka has been interpreted as:
1. Feet-dragging until the last minute by Indian government
2. Buckling to American pressure on the issue
3. Allowing Foreign Policy to be dictated by Tamil Nadu politics
4. Estranging Sri Lanka
5. Pushing Sri Lanka into the strategic embrace of China
Read more on my policy blog
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