2010

Has the death of the nonagenerian party patriarch, Jyoti Basu, really caused an “irreparable loss” to the CPI-M or created a “void” in the party difficult to fill—as is being talked about in political circles? This writer does not think so. In his twilight years Jyoti Basu had little influence on the younger leaders of the party, whether at the national or State level. Some of them, notably the present Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, never tried to conceal their contempt for him. (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Maoism In India: Reincarnation of Ultra-Leftwing Extremism in the Twentyfirst Century by Bidyut Chakravarty and Rajat Kujur; Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series, Routledge, Taylor and Francis, London and New York; 2010; pages 250.
The book under review has seven chapters, six appendices, a bibliography and an index. The first three chapters are of historical and organisational import. The last one is on the future of the movement. The intervening two chapters are on the (…)

COMMUNICATION
I would support Naxalism sans its violence. Some call the Naxals “terrorists”. If at all they could be called terrorists, they are too small a section of the society. There is a larger and stronger class of capitalists, who should ideally be described as “economic terrorists”, for a majority of them plunder the economy, with the overt and covert support of the politicians and bureaucrats. This class has always ensured that certain sections of the society are deprived of basic (…)

Blood-curdling screams, spine-chilling blood-bath and heart-rending mass killings—these are an integral part of life in the Kaimur hills of Rohtas district in Bihar. With untamed dense forests, rain-kissed lush vegetation, challenging terrain, gushing waterfalls, black and brown valley, the Kaimur hills of Bihar, once known as mini-Chambal, where governance and adminis-tration have already been strangled by the Red guerrillas, are vibrating with the booming of guns. About three dozen tribal (…)

One reason for the continuing attacks by White Australians on Brown Indians is the Australian Government’s refusal to take them seriously, let alone see racism in them. They don’t take it seriously because they don’t take India seriously. And they don’t see any racism because Australian racism is part of a rising tide of racism across the world.
The ultra-Right British National Party has been gaining ground in local and national elections. It is true that these gains have been mostly (…)

The return of terror after a gap of 15 months (following the 26/11 terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008) has naturally caused consternation across the country: on February 13 a bomb blast ripped through Pune’s popular German Bakery, close to the Osho Ashram and diagonally across the Jewish Chabad House (which 26/11 suspect David Coleman Headley had earlier recced), initially killing nine persons, including three foreigners, and injuring 45 (among whom four were foreign nationals); (…)

The sine qua non of a functioning democracy is free and fair elections of the representatives by an enlightened citizenry. However, conduct of free and fair elections depends more on having a free and fair electoral machinery, free from the influence and control of the executive and the party in power.
When the Draft Article 289 on Elections was taken up for consideration on June 15 and 16, 1949 in the Constituent Assembly, several Members severely criticised the dangerous (…)

The following is the lucidest possible exposition of transgenic genetic engineering. There has been no other exposition anywhere with comparable lucidity of this intricate subject. Since this kind of engineering poses a threat to life’s survival on earth, it has become a crucial political issue. This article was published in Mainstream Annual 2001 (dated December 22, 2001). It is being reproduced here, with minor alternations
by the author, in view of the latest controversy surrounding (…)

The recent developments in Maharashtra are against the very spirit of our Constitution and unhealthy for the future of democracy in India. Both the senior and junior (Raj) Thackerays are competing with each other for their political survival and indulging in poisonous politics by playing regional, linguistic and religious cards, putting the unity and integrity of the nation in danger.
Some time ago we saw North Indians being beaten black and blue by the Shiv Sainiks/MNS activists in (…)

A few days back, on January 26, 2010, we celebrated our sixtieth Republic Day, reminding us that we declared ourselves to be a sovereign Republic sixty years ago. We proclaimed that all people, living in this country, irrespective of religion, caste, gender, place of living would have freedom of opportunity. We told ourselves that ours would be a democratic country where freedom of faith or absence of it, right to live with dignity, to be treated as equal everywhere —place of worship, (…)