2011

COMMUNICATION
A few weeks back the media reported that some kins of the recently retired Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan, have amassed huge fortunes which their known sources of income cannot account for. To this the answer of the worthy judge was that his kins would have to explain, meaning thereby that there was no onus on him.
This brings to mind certain standards of moral conduct set up by our national leaders.
In the pre-independence days, Shri Pattabhi Sitaramayya, (…)

TRIBUTE
Eminent political scientist, writer and foreign affairs commentator Professor Bhabani Sengupta, 89, died in the Capital on January 18, 2011 after prolonged illness. For several years he was associated with the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. Besides being a prolific analyst of international events, he was a creative writer and wrote several novels in Bengali under the pen-name ‘Chanakya Sen’. Under that pseudonym he also wrote several articles in Mainstream soon after its (…)

January 26 has a special significance in the annals of both pre- and post-independence India. In 1930 the day was observed as Independence Day by virtue of a resolution adopted at the historic Lahore session of the Indian National Congress at the fag end of the previous year; it was at the session that the premier national organisation had for the first time proclaimed purna swaraj (full independence) as its goal. And within two-and-a-half years after the British quit this country in August (…)

January 30 this year marks the sixtythird anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom. We offer our homage to his indelible memory by reproducing the following excerpts from Jawaharlal Nehru’s statement in the Constituent Assembly on February 2, 1948, that is, within three days of the assassination of the Father of the Nation.
I am not quite sure in my own mind if it is exactly fitting for me or for any others of this House to say much on this occasion, for I have a sense of utter shame both (…)

On January 23 this year falls Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s one hundred and fourteenth birth anniversary. On this occasion we are carrying the following excerpts from Netaji’s writings and speeches for the benefi of our readers.
Every great movement starts from small beginnings, and so it will be in India. Our first task will be to gather together a group of men and women who are prepared to undergo the maximum sacrifice and suffering which will be necessary if we are to attain success in (…)

The Republic is in deep anguish. What has been happening around us is too serious to be dismissed with anger. The Commonwealth Games has brought more shame than medals. Then came the 2G scam and the losses caused by faulty and ill-considered or reckless orders of the then Minister was estimated to be Rs 1 lakh 76 thousand crores, a mind-boggling figure by the CAG, a constitutional office. Then while the matter was sub judice and before Parliament another Minister rose to claim that no losses (…)

This article was written sometime ago but could not be published earlier due to unavoidable reasons. It is now being carried as its contents retain their validity.
As we approach the next Republic Day on January 26, 2011, the people of India are finding their sixty-year-old Republic in a state of disarray with Parliament, our highest representative assembly, trapped in a political imbroglio and the governance of the country caught in a creeping paralysis under the impact of successive (…)

by Pushpa M. Bhargava
The year was 1942. The ‘Quit India’ Movement. I had just joined the Lucknow University and was, like millions of others, intimately involved in the freedom movement.
Not without reason. At the India Coffee House in Hazratganj, I turned the cup and saucer over. Made in Great Britain (GB). So were the straws, pencil, paper, nails, pins and clips. We produced no manufactured product. The shirt I wore, came from Lancashire mills in England woven from Indian cotton. We (…)

With deepening strategic ties between India and the USA, there is also increased military-to-military contact for training and inter-operability. Both India and the USA are democracies, one the largest and the other the oldest, both with volunteer militaries statutorily under civilian control. Just as the two democracies have much to learn from each other, so too, have their respective militaries and their respective veterans.
However, there are differences in the national strategy, (…)

COMMUNICATION
After the publication of my article reviewing Jolly Mohan Kaul’s book In Search of a Better World: Memoirs, I find that the first subheading that I gave in it was inappropriate. Actually it intended to convey “No Difference in Lifestyle-related Objectives between the Soviet and Capitalist States”; the omission of the word ‘lifestyle-related’ was an error for which I take full responsibility.
A reader asked me if my statement (under the subheading “Reasons for Collapse of (…)