2010

The following is a summary of the lecture delivered by Michael W. Apple (Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA) at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), New Delhi, on October 21, 2009. Notes and references have been inserted by the compiler (Vikas Gupta, Assistant Professor of History at Delhi University) with the view to help the reader to pursue further inquiry. The compiler has stated that (…)

Call this a season of goof-ups. Yes, one after another. If those goof-ups from R.K. Pachauri manned TERI and IPCC don’t seem to end, there is this one from the Union Ministry of Women and Child Welfare. With that full-blown advertise-ment carrying, besides others, a former Pakistani Air Force chief’s picture. Presumably one of those blunders which could see a couple of heads rolling. But what’s bothering me is: how do these full-page government advertise-ments help in curbing crimes? This (…)

All efforts to build a sustainable economic infrastructure and functional democracy in Afghanistan are currently under threat from widespread corruption and the sway of illegal drugs in the country. Unless drug-related corruption—which happens to be one of the most intractable problems in the state—is tackled in right earnest in a concerted manner at the levels of both the provincial and district governments, it cannot be rooted out; and the failure to do so would spell disaster as the very (…)

The following is the text of the letter that the Editor of Mainstream sent to the President of India twenty years ago on January 27, 1990 detailing the reasons for his inability to accept the Padma Bhushan award conferred on him on the Republic Day that year. We are reproducing the letter in the wake of the latest raging controversy over the Padma award being conferred on an NRI businessman.
Nikhil Chakravartty,
Editor Mainstream
35 Kaka Nagar
New Delhi -11000
January 27, 1990
To (…)

Sixty years ago in a message to the nation on the occasion of India becoming a Republic, our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who was aptly described as the architect of modern India, conveyed the following warning note:
We are fortunate to witness the emergence of the Republic of India and our successors may well envy us this day; but fortune is a hostage which has to be zealously guarded by our own good work and which has a tendency to slip away if we slacken in our efforts or if (…)

IMPRESSIONS
There’s a brand new addition to our National Register of Shame. The law has been amended to allow free air travel, business class, to “any number of companions and relatives” of Ministers. MPs were already enjoying this obscene privilege, but not Ministers. The latest amendment is “to remove this discrepancy”.
Of course, there was a more decent way to end that discrepancy—by scrapping the undeserved charity given to MPs. But such thoughts do not occur to netas and babus (…)

On the occasion of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 113th birth annivarsary on January 23 this year we offer our homage to the memory of that indomitable freedom figher by reproducing excerpts from his speeches and writings.
This is Subhas Chandra Bose speaking to you over the Azad Hind Radio.
For about a year I have waited in silence and patience for the march of events and now that the hour has struck, I come forward to speak.
The fall of Singapore means the collapse of the (…)

Every year we dutifully go through the ritual of offering homage to Gandhiji on the day of his martyrdom.
We shall once again be witnessing the ceremony on January 30 to be conducted as per protocol—early morning prayer at Rajghat, singing of bhajans and hymns, a round of spinning and then during the course of the day, meetings and seminars and a special programme on Doordarshan to remind us of the Father of the Nation. VVIPs encircled by gun-totting security guards will do the round (…)

COMMUNICATION
What is new about the presence of a few policemen at the new year party toasted by an NCP politician, allegedly for and on behalf of an underworld don? The fact that many politicians, and quite a few men in khaki, have always had nexus with the gangsters is known to everyone. It has always been a symbiotic existence. Have elections not been financed by the underworld? Not much harm will be done to the erring policemen, because they will be shielded by their guardians, and (…)

TRIBUTE
Jyoti Basu is no more. After 17 days of valiant struggle (that first began when he was hospitalised on New Year’s Day having been struck by a bout of pneumonia) he finally succumbed to multi-organ failure and breathed his last at 11.47 am on January 17, 2010. On July 8 last year the former West Bengal CM—the longest-serving head of any State Government in independent India—had completed 95 years in age.
More than 28 years ago when one of Jyoti Basu’s closest (…)