2010

As we go to press, the Union Cabinet is learnt to have accepted the recommendations of the Group of Ministers set up by the UPA Government to revisit the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy and suggest means to help the victims after more than 25 years.
It was proposed by several persons, including Opposition politicians, that the GoM’s action plan should be placed before an all-party committee as well as organisations striving secure justice for the Bhopal victims for the past quarter of a century (…)

The recent spate of exposures in Western media about Pakistan’s heightened ambition of expanding its “srategic depth” in Afghanistan, which was severely dented in the post-9/11 period, serves to strengthen the traditional skepticism about the long-term efficacy of a search for peace in South Asia.
The “trust deficit” between themselves that both India and Pakistan aspire to reduce through renewed dialogue is being expanded quite effectively at this very moment by Islamabad’s well-planned (…)

Respected Chief Minister,
Patna made history again by rebuffing an attempt to throw doubts on her deepest ideals, notwithstanding the spat it caused between the two members of the NDA with a limited common programme. The BJP clearly violated the terms of the alliance on the occasion of its National Executive meet at Patna by using it as a platform for claiming false and misleading proximity and warmth between the Bihar and Gujarat CMs when there had been none after the horrendous Gujarat (…)

The Dantewada massacre of 75 jawans of the CRPF ambushed by the Maoists followed in the next week by the blowing up of a bus carrying civilians in which some jawans of the CRPF were also travelling taking a heavy toll of 50 lives has forced agonising reappraisal of the strategy adopted so far by the Union Home Ministry in dealing with the Maoist challenge. A senior member of the Congress and the former Chief Minister of MP, Digvijay Singh, openly criticised the Home Minister for his wrong- (…)

As the final phase of the intake of OBCs quota in educational institutions—such as central universities, IIMs, IITs, AIIMS, institutions funded or managed under the aegis of the Central Government—is going to be accomplished in the coming session, there is a sense of satisfaction that another step has been taken for the upliftment of the socially backward sections of society. Hitherto, the backward castes and communities have been denied any attempt to rise socially; thus it is our (…)

“The Muslim is not wanted in the armed forces because he is always suspect—whether we want to admit it or not, most Indians consider Muslims a fifth column for Pakistan.” [Vengeance! India after the assassination of Indira Gandhi (New Delhi, Norton, 1985), pp. 1995-96] —George Fernandes
Amnesty International defines racial profiling as the targeting of individuals and groups by law enforcement officials, even partially, on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion, except (…)

On Nikhil Chakravartty’s twelfth death anniversary on June 27, 2010, we remember the founder of this journal by reproducing four tributes to him after his death by noted personalities (the former President of India and three veteran journalists) who knew him closely. None of them is, however, currently with us. The piece by K.R. Narayanan appeared in The Book Review (August 1998) and was reproduced later in Mainstream (September 12, 1998). The piece by Chanchal Sarkar was published in the (…)

When I first came to work in Delhi the most respected journalistic figure here was Sir Usha Nath Sen, one of the founders of the Associated Press of India which eventually became the PTI (Press Trust of India). Sir U.N. once told me of his guru K.C. Roy, the real founder of the API, that in any matter concerning the Government of India, in Delhi or Simla, K.C. Roy could figure out exactly with whom the matter rested and who would take the decision.
Delhi has grown exponentially since K.C. (…)

Nikhilda had turned eightyfour. Some people live for hundred years and stay perfectly agile, alert and healthy. Though he had an ageing physique, Nikhilda was not a person who would live by obeying the regulations of keeping fit.
Four years ago, he took a taxi and went out in the hills. Alone. He was to meet me at the institutes in Mussoorie/Nainital. He reached there on time, attended the workshops, but again went out in the hills. I returned to Delhi and then left for Calcutta where I (…)

It was the strangest of happenings that I should come to know of Nikhil Chakravartty in the late 1950s on account of his wife Renu Chakravartty. While she, living most of the last few years in Calcutta and therefore getting more and more remote in acquaintance became a distant figure, he grew over the last forty years as a journalist, philosopher, historian, critic, most uncritical of friends and friendliest of critics. Renu Chakravartty was discovered in person in August 1958 when she took (…)