2010

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington to attend the Nuclear Security Summit offered him an opportunity during his meeting with the US head of state to raise India’s concerns in the wake of the latest Afpak policy framed by President Barack Obama. It must be pointed out that he did so quite effectively, and told Obama in clear terms that New Delhi could never forego its strategic and security interests at the altar of US expediency in that region, particularly when both sides (…)

The recent incident in Dantewada wherein the Maoists killed 76 CRPF jawans has triggered a heated debate about the establishment on one side and the Naxalites on the other. One section calls for strong action against the Naxalites, even calling them terrorists and urging the use of armed forces against them, while others defend the action of the Naxalites to the extent of justifying it.
Hours and hours have been spent on the debate by many people, be it senior politicians, (…)

The judiciary, though one of the three wings of the sovereignty, is considered to be the weakest by the public even if in the constitutional scheme it should be the strongest. But this downgrading unfortunately is brought about by self-inflicted wounds. The judiciary owes to itself to do a little more serious introspection if for nothing else but to just maintain its esteem amongst the public at large.
A serious charge against the judiciary is the pendency of about 2.7 crore cases in (…)

The 119th birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar has been observed on April 14 this year. On this occasion we offer our sincere homage to that towering personality by publishing the following article and a piece that N.C. wrote on him in 1990 when the Bharat Ratna was posthumously conferred on Dr Ambedkar.
Paradoxically the curse of untouchability continues to chase Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar even half-a-century after his death and the bane is not history yet. (…)

The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B.R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed most to the drafting of the Indian Constitution and piloting it through the Constituent Assembly. There is, therefore, a touch of irony in Ambedkar being awarded the Bharat Ratna 30 years after he eminently deserved it when the Constitution came into force in 1950.
Not only that. All (…)

Let us say P. Chidambaram has his way. Crack Army battalions are ordered into the forests of the Naxal-tribal belt. A formidable arsenal of weapons short of the nuclear are pressed into service. The Air Force, despite its better judgment, is ordered to reduce suspected hideouts into ash heaps. In no time Chidambaram will be able to proclaim triumphantly that the Maoists have been wiped out.
But that’s what Chief Minister Siddharth Shankar Ray did in West Bengal in the 1970s. By then (…)

Since the biggest incident of massacre of 76 CRPF personnel by the Maoists at Dantewada, Chhattisgarh on April 6, 2010 heated debates have been taking place in the media about how to tackle the menace of Naxalite/Maoist violence in the country. In these debates, which take place on almost all channels of the electronic media, spokespersons of the major political parties, retired military and police officers appearing on these channels as defence experts and TV anchors always end up holding (…)

The Maoists have got entrenched in the forested areas inhabited mainly by the Scheduled Tribes in the mineral rich areas of Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Although the Naxalite movement had started in 1967 when the CPI-M adopted the parliamentary democratic path in the tribal packet of Naxalbari, it was quite active in Kolkata and other urban areas in the early 1970s. It struck roots in the plain areas of Bhojpur and Jahanabad in Bihar in the 1980s. However, gradually it has shifted to (…)

Interim Observations of the Jury of Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt
The Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt (organised by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens) was held in New Delhi from April 9 to 11, 2010. Its jury comprised retired Supreme Court judge Justice P.B. Sawant, retired Bombay High Court judge Justice (…)

We condemn in no uncertain terms the killing of more than 70 CRPF personnel by the Maoists in the Makrana Forests of Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada on April 6. We also condemn the killing of more than a hundred tribal villagers by the security forces since June 2009 in the same area in the course of the ongoing Operation Green Hunt. Loss of any life diminishes human values
The April 6 incident highlights the urgent necessity of reviewing Operation Green Hunt and, if necessary, reversing (…)