2010

Not all the misplaced genius of the Lalit Modis and the Sharad Pawars of our land can generate the drama and passion football inspires. India is a net loser in becoming a cricket-only country. On the one hand, it destroys the spirit of cricket itself by turning it into a crass money machine. On the other, it leads to the neglect of glorious games like hockey and football.
Cricket covers but a few countries; football is universal. Cricket is colonial; football is democratic. Cricket, (…)

Identity politics is the latest ideological issue that is being hotly discussed by political intellectuals particularly in the party precincts of the Communist Party of Kerala-Marxist. This issue was in circulation among a narrow section of Left ideologues specially after the publication of the book Manifesto of the Victims in Malayalam, written a few years ago by Prof K.E.N. Kunjahammad, a staunch supporter of the CPI-M and a much sought after writer and speaker of the party and its front (…)

Tribals are, on the whole, the poorest section of the Indian people, socially and educationally the most deprived, economically the most back-ward and the most exploited, whose community land has been taken away on one pretext or the other, whose forests, even their minor products, have been placed out of bounds for them, whose non-renewable mineral resources have been handed over to outsiders for profitable extraction in the name of national development, who have been suffering injustice (…)

Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh’s missive against Chidambaram’s law and order driven Green Hunt Operation has drawn the attention of the entire nation. After a free for all, untramelled journey, scripted by the neo-liberals, this was definitely a timely break which reminds us that the Congress ought to go back to its roots, much of what was crafted out of the Nehru and essentially Gandhi discourse. The Congress party need not take recourse to the long dead agenda of Cold War (…)

On June 13, 2010, we, 12 human rights activists of Jharkhand, started our journey before dawn. We had heard a horrible story about an Adivasi woman who was killed in crossfire between the security forces and the Maoists. Her name was Jasinta. She was a mere 25-year-old married woman enjoying her life with her family in a village. Of course, she was a mother of three kids whose lives are at stake now. Therefore, we wanted to know the truth. We wanted to know whether she was a Maoist. The most (…)

China since 1949 has claimed that Taiwan is not only an inalienable part but also an internal matter of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But at the same time one sees that there exists a very strong dimension to the Taiwan affair. Since the 1980s there has been a major shift in this dynamics. After its democratisation in the 1980s it has clearly formed a very unique characteristic vis-à-vis China. These differences have been the cause of a number of clashes. Mainland China did show its (…)

With Parliament rounding off the general debate on the Budget, this is the point of time when certain reflections on the government’s presentation of the economic crisis before the nation may be in order.
Right at the outset, there was both curiously and appreciation on the Prime Minister having chosen a distinguished economist as his Finance Minister. An outsider in the arena of party politics, Dr Manmohan Singh raised expectations that he would present before the nation a fairly (…)

Eminent scientists, who have examined the technology of genetically engineered (GE) or genetically modified (GM) crops, have come to a clear conclusion that it is a highly hazardous and risky technology. For example, eminent scientists from several countries, who comprise the Independent Science Panel (ISP), have drawn this conclusion after studying various aspects of GM crops. “GM crops have failed to deliver the promised benefits and are posing escalating problems on the farm.....GM crops (…)

Sometime ago I had written that Sonia Gandhi’s advisers ought to have told her to move beyond Jammu. Towards those particular locales in the Valley where the affected families, of those slain in the fake encounters or those raped and murdered by the security forces, just about survive. And now I wish to dwell a little more on this aspect—though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in the Valley, his advisers kept him away from meeting the family of the two Shopian women who had been brutally (…)

India has a long argumentative tradition in spite of its many failures. The tradition is reflected in our public debates. The debates, in their turn, make us aware of the less explored aspects of our social reality. Some of the recent interventions of public intellectuals are revisited below to enlighten us about the modalities of our governance.
Information technology has undergone a revolution in recent years. But, what kind of information do we get in public life? Mrinal Pande has (…)