2011

REVIEW ARTICLE
by Ajay Patnaik
Inside Central Asia—A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran by Dilip Hiro; Harper Collins Publishers India, New Delhi; 2010; pages 448; Price: Rs 599.
Dillip Hiro’s latest book Inside Central Asia is, as the cover suggests, a political and cultural history of not just five former Soviet Central Asian republics but also that of two extended cultural neighbours—Turkey and Iran. There (…)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s official visit to India on December 21-22, 2010 capped the visits of all the five permanent members of UNSC last year. This provided an opportunity to compare the magnitude of our strategic relation-ship with all these countries. Medvdev’s visit to India was preceded by the visits of US President Barak Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nikolas Sarkozy and Chinese Prime Minster Wen Jiabao to our country in quick succession making (…)

From N.C.’s Writings In the light of the cricket fever that has gripped the entire country following India’s spectacular win over Sri Lanka at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium on April 2 to lift the World Cup, we are reproducing N.C.’s following article written for The Tribune precisely 15 years ago (it was later published in Mainstream on March 23, 1996) after the unsavoury incidents at Calcutta’s Eden Gardens where the India-Sri Lanka semifinal on March 13, 1996 had to be abandoned due to the (…)

Last month the eightieth anniversary of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru’s martyrdom was observed on March 23. We offer our sincere homage to Bhagat Singh and recall his heroism while projecting his radical socialist ideas in the present context.
When the 80th anniversary of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, March 23 [he was born on September 28, 1907 at Lyallpur Barga in the district Nawanshehar, now in Pakistan], is being observed, he has been described as an aatanki [terrorist] in two (…)

Veteran journalist and editor Ajit Bhattacharjea, 86, passed away at his residence in New Delhi on April 4, 2011 after a protracted illness—he was battling galloping cancer originating from a tumour in his brain.
His wife, Dr Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, an acknowledged authority on China’s foreign relations, having predeceased him on December 13, 2009, he is survived by his son Aditya and daughters Suman and Nomita, besides three grandchildren.
Born in Shimla in 1924, he did his BA and MA (…)

Jayaprakash Narayan has left a heritage of unremitting intellectual and political pursuit of individual freedom and social justice. He campaigned for human rights everywhere, including Kashmir, Nagaland and Tibet. His transparent sincerity, simplicity, openness to new ideas and willingness to re-examine his own made it a privilege to know him.
Yet one cannot say that the social evils against which he struggled are nearer solution today, 19 years after he left us. In many ways the (…)

As we go to press disturbing news has come from Washington: according to one report, highlighted by Russia Today or RT, one of the most independent foreign news channels in the world, US President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorising the CIA to arm the anti-Gaddafi rebels in Libya; other reports quote senior American officials suggesting a fierce debate within the US Administration on this issue of supplying arms to the Libyan rebels with some apprehending that such a step (…)

by John Pilger
This article, circulated by Countercurrents, reached us sometime ago but we could not use it earlier for unavoidable reasons. But we are publishing it now due to its abiding relevance.
Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared the President’s daily intelligence brief. McGovern was at the apex of the “national security” monolith, that is, American power, and had retired with presidential (…)

No one from Telangana asked for the appointment of the Srikrishna Committee. The Centre perhaps wanted to buy time after there was severe opposition from the influential and vocal sections of Seemandhra to the announcement of its decision on December 9, 2009 to initiate the process of the formation of Telangana State.
But once the Committee was constituted, there was widespread curiosity within the country and abroad to know the findings of an expert and impartial committee headed by a (…)

The next State Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh are scheduled in the summer of 2012. This article presents the prospects of the BSP in next State Assembly elections. After securing absolute majority in the UP State Assembly elections in 2007, and the successful inception of social engineering, the BSP adopted the Sarvajan policy as a guiding mantra of the present BSP Government. This policy speaks about the inclusion of all sections of the society into the framework of the government’s (…)