July 2009

The Delhi High Court judgment in the Naz Foundation case is a landmark verdict which decriminalises homosexuality and strikes a blow in favour of personal freedom on the solid foundations of inclusiveness and respect for diversity. It deserves to be welcomed by all those who value constitutional morality and the principles of personal privacy and human dignity. It “reads down” Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code—which treats “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” as a punishable (…)

A food security law, steps to strengthen the NREGA, and so on, form parts of the pro-poor agenda of the UPA Government. For implementing these initiatives a fresh exercise to identify the below poverty-line (BPL) people has become necessary. It is obvious that the real outcomes and even the political pay-off of any such programme would depend on the extent to which the really needy acquire effective, assured, hassle and transactions cost-free access to a meaningful quantity of really needed (…)

Binayak Sen has been released on bail from Raipur jail after an unprecedented national and international campaign for two long years. But the man is worried about civil liberties of thousands of others like him who still continue to languish in jail and who are not fortunate enough to have a vocal middle class activist base and media vouch for them. Some like filmmaker Ajay T.G. and journalist Sai Reddy were fortunate enough to be released due to lack of any evidence against them but others (…)

On July 10, 1972 passed away in distant Moscow one of the most creative Marxist-Leninists this country has produced—Bhowani Sen (whose birth centenary was observed this year on January 26).
As was noted during his birth centenary in Mainstream (January 24, 2009),
“. . .apart from the fact that he was one of the most erudite scholars of Marxism in general and Marxist philosophy in particular, Bhowani Sen had a highly enriched analytical frame of mind and a broad national vision which is (…)

The fact that Congress was able to win nine out of 10 seats in Haryana is bound to give an erroneous impression that it received an overwhelming mandate. But the fact of the matter is that there was a marginal decline of 0.67 per cent in the support for the Congress-I as its poll percentage was reduced from 42.13 to 41.46. On the other hand, the INLD failed to win any seat despite its alliance with the BJP. Its poll percentage was also reduced from 22.43 to 15.68, a negative swing of about (…)

The recent spate of attacks on Christians in Orissa and those on Muslims in the present and past provokes one to study the status of minorities in India. But before getting into the details of the issue, which is the concern of the present paper, one needs to understand what one means by minority.
The term ‘minority’ in general refers to a part of the population of a state that is marked off by race or language or religion or some other social characteristic which leads the people of (…)

Book Review
Feudal Forces: Reform Delayed—Moving from Force to Service in South Asian Policing researched and written by Sanjay Patil; published by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative in partnership with the Fur Die Freiheit (Friedrich Naumann Stiftung); New Delhi; 2008.
“From the Khyber Pass to the Burmese border, and from the Himalayas to the Pearl of the Orient, the state of policing throughout Commonwealth South Asia is abysmal.” This is how, somewhat picturesquely, the (…)

rejoinder
In his article “Diffident Us versus Combative Them” [Mainstream (June 27, 2009)], T.J.S. George has seriously misrepresented the attitude of the Australian Government towards the recent incidents involving Indian students in Australia. Addressing the Parliament on June 2, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke in unequivocal terms: “I speak on behalf of all Australians when I say that we deplore and condemn these attacks. These are senseless acts of violence. Those who carry out these (…)

On Monday, July 6, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented in Parliament the UPA Government‘s full Union Budget for 2009-10 that envisages the highest total expenditure of Rs 10,20,835 crores with a yawning fiscal deficit which is to rise from 6.2 per cent in the Interim Budget to 6.8 per cent. The Hindustan Times headline—“Finance Minister bets on ‘aam aadmi’ for growth, holds out promise of reforms”—sums up the essence of the budgetary exercise. The Asian Age also aptly characterises (…)

In the wake of the unprecedented fiasco and impasse reached by the global hegemonic system without facing any external threat, many ideological and policy debates are kicking up a lot of dust and at the same time producing some enlightenment all over the world. At the same time in India as the political and other groups digest the implications of the 2009 mandate and its qualitative aspects, the Union Budget 2009-10 seems to have occasioned a debate as also a certain framework for its (…)