2011

As expected, the government and the Anna Team have disagreed on vital points. The question of inclusion of the Prime Minister within the ambit of the Lokpal is being falsely blown out of proportions by the government’s apologists. The Prime Minister, though the head of government, is only first amongst equals. In a democratic country, political vacuum does not arise as the Cabinet has a collective responsibility. Also, our past experience does not show that all our Prime Ministers have been (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
The situation in the country has turned grave in the wake of the threats being issued by certain influential Ministers and Congress politicians to Anna Hazare that he would be given the same treatment that was meted out to Baba Ramdev at the Capital’s Ramlila Maidan in the early hours of June 5, 2011. And the threats have come just before and during the observance of the 36th anniversary of proclamation of Emergency on June 25-26, 1975. It is against this backdrop that (…)

Fasts of Anna Hazare regarding the passing of the Lokpal Bill and Baba Ramdev against corruption and events that followed have raised fundamental questions regarding the functioning of parliamentary democracy in India.
The 97-hour fast by Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar which evoked huge response of people in Delhi and all over the country, compelled the government to concede his demand to constitute a joint committee of ‘Ministers and members of Civil Society’ to formulate a draft by the (…)

Those were the years when the people in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar thought that now the change was about to come. The crowd at his gathering was increasing regularly. The speeches were laced with new adjectives of ‘future of India’. Rajiv’s clean image had taken a beating. The exposé had jolted his government. As the Finance Minister, he ordered that the corruption charges against prominent industrialists be probed. Many of them had to go to jail. He selected his officers on the basis of their (…)

The current populist rejuvenation of civil society in India has offered many questions to the intelligentsia. It has invoked ‘quick’ diagnoses for the current ills (corruption and black money) by organising a rendezvous of different antago-nists under the banner of ‘Civil Society’. One has to answer whether such heightened valorisation of civil society is in a real sense healthy for democracy or not. Further, the absence and disinterest of the ‘political Left’ to mobilise and provide (…)

by FR. ANAND MUTTUNGAL
Even though of late controversies are rising about the role of the RSS in various agitations the public uprising against corruption and related issues are being seen as the beginning of social transformation. People of all classes have condemned the police crackdown on those who assembled to participate on the anti-corruption fast by Baba Ramdev on Saturday-Sunday night, June 4-5, 2011. The agitation is said to be reminding people of the great people’s move-ments led (…)

History repeats itself, first as a farce and then as a tragedy, thus observed a perceptive thinker. The farcical end of Baba Ramdev’s fast, facilitated by a galaxy of babas, ram bhakats, sris, sris etc., preceded by Anna Hazare’s fast against corruption, confirms this. Baba Ramdev built a sprawling empire by commodifying the age-old Indian systems of yoga and ayurveda. The spectacular success of the Baba’s venture whipped his political ambitions.
Since the BJP’s campaign against (…)

Retired IAS officer of the Bihar cadre and Convener of Lok Paksh, Patna/Delhi Shree Shankar Sharan (who was earlier the President of the Awami Ekta Manch, Patna/Delhi) passed away at Gurgaon’s Paras Hospital at 8 pm on June 18; he would have completed 80 years on August 7. He is survived by his wife, a daughter and three sons.
He was related to Lal Bahadur Shastri, our second PM, from his mother’s side whereas Jayaprakash Narayan (‘JP’ to one and all) happened to be his great grandfather’s (…)

United States President Barack Obama never fails to rise to the occasion when rhetorical flourish is the need of the hour. By that yardstick, the drawdown speech on June 22 in Washington that he thoughtfully titled “On the Way Forward in Afghanistan”, has been more a programmatic speech than intended to stir up the mind. His judgment is correct that the occasion is not one of celebration but of justification for what is to be done about something that went horribly wrong.
There are (…)

[The following article reached us quite sometime ago when the State Government of the LDF was in power in Kerala. But it could not be used earlier for unavoidable reasons. —Editor]
by ANAND MATHEW
Prabhakaran, the proud president of Vellamunda gram panchayat in Wayanad district of Kerala, maintains a stoic equanimity and replies in an unrehearsed manner when asked probing questions from the informed gathering. The audience applauds often and even the jury seems impressed. Set amidst the (…)