2011

Anthropologists the world over have devoted quite a bit of attention to cultures of ‘Primitive Men’ as exotic elements and romanticised them. In India not only the cultures of the tribes but even that of general society has been romantically put within the Western framework. No wonder most Indian anthropologists eulogise the works of N.K. Bose for his contribution to the concept of culture and the role it has played in the sustenance of Village India in general and Indian civilisation in (…)

Within a day of the PM’s televised interaction with editors of TV channels the Union Government has annulled the contract which Antrix, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), had entered into with Devas Multimedia in January 2010 wherein 70 MHz of S-band spectrum had been given to Devas at throwaway prices and without competitive bidding resulting in a loss of crores of rupees to the exchequer.
While this is doubtless welcome (especially when various (…)

Cairo has a distinction other ancient, continuous-civilisation cities like Damascus, Baghdad and Varanasi have never had: It is the heart-beat of pan-Arab culture, its influence stretching for beyond its national boundries. Egyptian novelist Naguib Mehfouz was the Arab world’s novelist, not just Egypt’s. Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram was the Arab world’s newspaper. Egypt’s Al-Azhar university was the Arab world’s university.
Typical of Egypt, the Al-Ahram newspaper was always (…)

The world has been charmed by the exercise and display of people’s power in Egypt. It all started in Tunisia over a common man setting himself aflame because of the callousness of authorities setting off huge demonstrations ending with the resignation of the President. But it reached its apogee in Egypt by what the Egyptians fondly called the march of a million in the Tahrir Square from day to day, unafraid and undeterred by the presence of the Egyptian Army, whose mind none could foretell, (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
In the wake of the memorable mass upsurge in Egypt we reproduce the following piece by N.C. on a similar uprising in China in 1989—it was published on May 27, 1989 precisely a week before the massive student movement in Beijing was brutally suppressed on June 4, 1989.
Like a thunder-lap it has burst. The massive student upsurge that has gripped China today has no parallel in history. A new page is being added to the great revolutions in the annals of humankind—the (…)

by Rajarshi Mitra
Egypt is magic, the land of stories, memories, and the exotic. She never failed to mesmerise the world, and as the present shows, she continues to. Observing and admiring, like the world is, I was reminded of Shakespeare’s moving dramatisation of a similar node in Egypt’s remarkable past. In Antony and Cleopatra, a romantic and sybaritic Antony, ever forgetful of his magisterial duties, cries out: ‘Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch/ Of the ranged empire fall! Here (…)

Come to Tahrir Square
Be the eye of the peaceful revolution
Here are the makeshift memorials to the martyrs
Where hundreds and thousands stood their valiant ground
See moral courage pitted against insolent might
See mounted thugs—sent to beat, stone, stab, shoot and kill—retreat
Witness the power of non-violent action triumph
Come to Tahrir Square
Feel the pulse of the people networked on the internet
Resurrecting human rights and justice
Hear the stories of oppression (…)

In the heyday of Islam the region of North and North West Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and Egypt comprising the coastal plain and Atlas Mountains of Morocco together with Algeria and Tunisia and Spain across Strait of Gibraltar formed the Maghrib (West) of Muslim world.
It all began with a simple incident common in the streets of countries under despotic rule in the Arab world where the police and Army are all powerful as the arms of autocratic authority. A young fruit vendor’s cart (…)

“I sincerely believe that like Caesar’s wife, the Prime Minister should be above suspicion and it is for this reason that I am prepared to appear before the PAC even though there is no precedent to that effect.”
—Manmohan Singh at the plenary session of the Congress party, December 20, 2010.
We know that when a system faces the possibility of degeneration the leaders try to make absurd emotional appeals to convince the common man about their infallibility. This is often done by the (…)

Ever since 1967, the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture has been organised almost every year in the month of November at Teen Murti House by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund.
The latest lecture was delivered by Prof. Joseph E. Stiglitz of the Columbia University. Stiglitz, a world-renowned economist and Nobel Laureate, has been well known in India for his clarity and conviction of views. His books are widely read and discussed among not only economists but also the wider circle of (…)