2011

by Panchali Saikia
The recent ASEAN Summit held in Jakarta in May 2011 was dominated by the Thai-Cambodian issue, but it failed to reach a consensus about how to resolve it. Before the summit, both Thailand and Cambodia agreed to accept an Indonesian observer team to monitor a ceasefire. But, weeks later there was another military confrontation along the border. The armed confrontation was witnessed between February 4 and 7, 2011 near the Preah Vihear temple and from April 22 to May 3, (…)

COMMUNICATION
I congratulate you on your two editorials: one, Mamata propels historic change in West Bengal, and the other in a later issue on the debacle of the CPM in the West Bengal elections.
In this context I wish to refer to two incidents—one, when I travelled with your late illustrious father, Nikhil Chakravartty, who, according to me, was the topmost Communist intellectual of his time. While travelling together I said that Jyoti Basu will help Bangladesh on the water issue and (…)

The project to digitise all archival material (90 lakh archival documents and 110 lakh pages of newspapers on microfilm) available at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi’s Teen Murti House, that was launched with a grant from the Prime Minister’s Office a year-and-a-half ago (it was conveived in 2006), is fully underway.
A catalogue of 2.5 lakh books in the Library—digitised in searchable format, author-wise and title-wise—is already available on the NMML website (…)

Now that Baba Ramdev has given up his indefinite fast it is time to concentrate on Anna Hazare and his associates, that is, civil society members in the Lokpal Bill drafting committee, and their efforts in the committee to ensure the realisation of an effective Lokpal Bill. After the “success” of the high-handed action by the Delhi Police, under instructions from the Union Home Ministry, to evict peaceful agitators at the venue of Baba Ramdev’s fast, based on the anti-black money crusade, at (…)

June 12 happens to be the World Day Against Child Labour. We are publishing the following article in that context.
Childhood happens once. But many do not have a childhood at all. The employers of the domestic child workers commonly see themselves as the messiahs. The notion of generosity gives them a human face. The policy that ‘child must not work’ is not negotiable. In an affluent middle-class family male members usually have the edge on their female counterparts while sharing the (…)

The following is a letter sent to the Prime Minister by several civil society activists on June 6.
Respected Dr Manmohan Singh,
We condemn the outrageous and illegal attempt by the Odisha Government, with the connivance and support of the Centre, to attack and seize the land of the villagers affected by the proposed POSCO project. We understand that on June 3, 17 people—including five children— were arrested and beaten by the police because they refused to allow the destruction of their (…)

One of the most shameful pieces of legislation in our penal code is the continuance of ‘Sedition’ in Section 124A of the Penal Code which provides that whoever excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India shall be punished with imprison-ment for life. The expression disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity. This provision was included by the British Government in 1870 as the rulers of India. Regretfully it continues to muddy (…)

The people of India were treated to a strange spectacle on the night of June 4, when all seemed normal with the anti-corruption movement of Baba Ramdev, the dias swarming with sadhus and the Baba raising slogans that he wanted karwai and not committees and that the government had accepted his demand regarding the seizure and repatriation of illegal Indian money parked in foreign banks but he awaited those commitments in writing. A press conference of Kapil Sibal displayed the written (…)

by ARVIND KEJRIWAL
Dr Manmohan Singh is one of the most honest Prime Ministers that the country has had. It is ironical that his own government should seek to take the Prime Minister out of the purview of Lokpal’s investigations.
As of today, the Prime Minister is covered under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Under that law, any allegation of corruption against a Prime Minister can be investigated. No exception has been made for either the Prime Minister or any of his activities (like (…)

TRIBUTE
by ARPANA CAUR
Everyone departs, few leave footprints, very few cause a vacuum. The legend of Indian art is gone. Hard to believe, for he had miles to paint—his series on cinema, on Indian civilisation, innumerable images in his young mind, heart and body waited to be painted by his long restless fingers. He who once painted hoardings for a living in a hard urban metropolis, carrying the innocence of his native village with its Ganga-Jamuni tahzeeb, of camaraderie between Hindu (…)