2011

It is difficult to predict what denouement the spat between the Sheikh Hasina-led Bangladesh Government and Mohammed Yunus, the Noble Laureate, would ultimately reach but it has undoubtedly brought to the fore many pitfalls of the micro-credit system which has so far been hailed as a panacea for poverty alleviation not just in the Third World countries but in many developed nations too. It may be a bit unfair to portrait Yunus as one who has only committed all kinds of wrongs but at the same (…)

The recent suicides by over 60 poor borrowers in the State of Andhra Pradesh have brought the operations of the microfinance institutions (MFIs) under public scrutiny. It is well documented by both print and electronic media that these debt-driven suicides were due to the coercive methods of loan recovery used by the commercial MFIs. The commercial MFIs operate as profit-making non-banking financial corporations (NBFCs) in India.
The majority of suicides took place in the Warangal (…)

The Land and Land Reforms Department of the Government of West Bengal first issued Section 4 (of the Land Acquisition Act 1894) in 1995 to acquire 21 moujas for the Left Front’s flagship project, the Rajarhat Satellite Township. Already, 2421 hectres of land have been acquired for the New Town project in Rajarhat and more that 1.6 lakh land-losers were awarded compen-sation. If we take into account the number of share-croppers, agricultural labourers and other people who derived their (…)

“I was stunned by the sight of 2000 centrifuges in two cascade halls and an ultramodern control room. But it was not until the long drive back to Pyongyang that the political implications of these findings hit me. It will be more important than ever to limit Pyongyang’s nuclear programme and calm tensions in the Korean peninsula.”
—American Scientist Dr Siegfried S. Hecker in Foreign Affairs, December 2010, after visiting the new uranium enriching plant in North Korea
North Korea was (…)

I have before me this recently released volume titled—What It Means To Be A Muslim In India Today. Published by ANHAD, this report is based on two important meets—a national meet on the status of Muslims in contemporary India which was held in New Delhi in 2009; and a people’s tribunal on the atrocities committed against Muslims in the name of fighting terror, which was held in Hyderabad in 2008. And putting together those proceedings, findings, observations, actual facts and figures in the (…)

“Indian Army, Rape Us”
The naked protest by women in Imphal, Manipur, on July 19, 2004, in front of the Assam Rifles Headquarters was in righteous protest against the custodial rape and murder of Thanjiam Manorama allegedly by Assam Rifles personnel. The protesting women held a banner that read, “INDIAN ARMY RAPE US” and “INDIAN ARMY TAKES OUR FLESH” [http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0719-03.htm ; Accessed on 19.3.2011]. While crimes by Indian Army personnel should never be excused (…)

Well before the last days of the civil war in Sri Lanka had begun to be counted, it was clear to the world at large that the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government was determined to pursue its military campaign single-mindedly to its logical conclusion, that is, the crushing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and a definitive end to Tamil separatism.
The world also knew—its interests kept alive by a constant barrage of expressions of concern for the enormous human cost that this all-out (…)

by Shobha Aggarwal
Respected Sir,
In December 2005 your good-self had launched the flagship scheme, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), with the stated objective of urban development. The policy document clearly enunciates the mandatory reforms to be implemented by the States and civic agencies during 2005-12. To receive funds—Rs 60,000 crores in all earmarked by the Central Government—under the JNNURM, the states and civic agencies have to sign a Memorandum of (…)

This article was sent to us quite sometime ago but it could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons. It is now being published since next month will fall Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary.
We know that Châr Adhyây (Four Chapters) was Rabindranath’s second political novel. We also know that like Ghare-Bâire (The Home and the World), 1916, the first, it fared ill with nationalists, and that one special reason for that had been his reference to Brahmabandhab (…)

MR BHAGWAT, IT’S TIME FOR AN APOLOGY!
I
Ram Madhav, the bispectacled (ex-) spokes-person of the RSS, is not known for his sense of humour.
It is a different matter that some of the media people just could not control their smiles when sometime back (in the second week of February 2011) at a press conference in the Capital he enlightened the journos about l’affaire Aseemanand and the broader phenomenon of Hindutva terror.
Giving a completely new and almost unforeseen twist to the (…)