2011

BOOK REVIEW
The Search for Netaji: New Findings by Purabi Roy; Purple Peacock Books and Arts Pvt. Ltd., Kolkata; March 2011; Rs 430.
One enquiry committee and two commissions —appointed at different times by three Indian governments—have so far probed the reported death of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the Taihoku airport in Formosa (Taipei) on August 18, 1945. Their reports were placed in Parliament in 1956, 1974 and 2006, and yet nobody seems to be sure of how the intrepid Indian (…)

WITH JUVENILE LEADERSHIP, IMMATURE POLITICS AND COSY PARTY-MEDIA TIES
From 1964 to 2011 it is 47 years and the time is certainly ripe for anyone to graduate from infancy to adulthood. This has, however, not been the case with the CPM, its leaders and its sympathisers among the literati and media-persons. The party has been mauled, to say the least. Yet there is no sign that it has drawn appropriate lessons.
Take the case of Prakash Karat by way of example. He is the General Secretary of (…)

by ADITYA NIGAM
In a recent newspaper article, former Left Front Finance Minister Ashok Mitra, observed: “The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, has not merely lost the poll in West Bengal, it has been made mincemeat of.” He was underlining the obvious, catastrophic significance of the results—at least from the Left Front’s perspective. The signs are there for everybody to see, especially when all important leaders of the LF Government have faced resounding defeat and (…)

(Following the publication of the piece—“Using Water Conflicts for US Benefit in Central and South Asia” by Hasan Hamidullah—in Mainstream (May 14, 2011), we were able to lay our hands on the following article on www.ut.uz. This does not provide any idea of the US attitude to such water conflicts but offers an objective view of the Uzbek-Tajik stand-off on the proposed Rogun Dam on the Vakhsh river, based on the expert assessment of a Russian specialist with regard to such major (…)

As we go to press news has come from London that Maqbool Fida Hussain, 96, the legendary Indian artist who was a veritable global colossus in the art world, breathed his last at the Royal Brompton Hotel at 2.30 am local time on June 9, 2011. He was keeping indifferent health for a month-and-a-half and is learnt to have finally died of lung congestion.
Described by the Forbes magazine as the ‘Picasso of India’, the iconographic artist and painter was in self-exile for the last several (…)

While the situation in our neighbourhood, specifically Pakistan and Afghanistan, continues to worsen (witness the horrific terrorist attack on the Mehran naval base in Karachi, besides the alleged abduction, torture and killing by the ISI of a well-known Pakistani investigative reporter who had not only exposed some Pak Navy personnel’s links to Al-Qaeda operatives but also revealed in his book how the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai were scripted by the ISI and cleared by the Qaeda), the UPA (…)

Victims have not forgotten the following brutal tragedies in the life of independent India, even if the State and political parties may pretend to have.
1984—Delhi: On October 31, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards in revenge for ‘Operation Bluestar’. For the next three days, as Doordarshan telecast the lying in state of her body, over 3000 Sikhs—men and boys—were burnt alive while policemen, politicians and the world watched. Very few have been (…)

When it was almost certain that the governments of the country were to take their hands off from total acquisition of land for a private project, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council has started thinking otherwise. The thought went out for hundred per cent acquisition by the government.
Had this come at the germinal stage of discussion about changes in the colonial Act, it could have resulted in Mamata Banerjee’s face glowering, for she had turned against acquisition by the (…)

The tragic situation of the Sri Lankan Tamils continues to shock the nations on surface. But nothing concrete is being done by the UNO or by India which has a special responsibility in the matter.
Tragic happenings following the breakdown of ceasefire in Sri Lanka were enquired into by the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, which held its sittings from January 14, 2010 at Dublin, and published its report on January 17, 2010. I was one of the ten members of this panel.
The Tribunal regretted (…)

Voicing his concern over the high incidence of casualties during the recent agitation in Jammu and Kashmir, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, observed that there should be non-lethal ways of dealing with the agitators. When I came across this observation in the papers, I was reminded of socialist leader Dr Lohia’s definite and strong views on police firing. Lohia believed that firing by the police which resulted in loss of lives of innocent and well-meaning citizens could have no place (…)