2012

by Dileep Padgaonkar
The patch-up between the Congress and NCP after a six-day stand-off between the two parties shows yet again that the ruling dispensation chooses at all times to address urgent issues to the detriment of essential ones. For the Congress, the urgent issue was to see that the NCP remained within the UPA-II fold to ensure its survival for the rest of its term in office. And for the NCP, it was to extract the maximum concessions from the Congress to flex its muscles even (…)

Though in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack in the US and the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq there is a shift from deconstruction towards politics, deconstruction is of great assistance to the post-human culture and power studies when it comes to analysing its relation-ship with politics. The world of simultaneous homogenising forces around market capitalism, information technology and global consumerism begs the question as to whether there is the appearance of a single universal (…)

The sixtyseventh anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing falls on August 6 this year. Seventeen months ago Fukushima happened in the wake of the tsunami that struck Japan. We remember the victims of those tragedies by publishing the following poem.
(A tribute to those who died in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima)
It was a day Like any other, in March. I was inside the home, Doing laundry for the kids, When I sensed a tremor. I was quite used to earthquakes, So I ran outside, Taking each (…)

As was only expected, Pranab Mukherjee, who left no stone unturned to win the Congress’ nomination as the UPA candidate for the office of the President, has won the presidential contest defeating his rival, former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma, convincingly—he secured 68.12 per cent of the total 10,47,971 value votes cast by 4659 Members of the State/Territorial Assemblies and Parliament while Sangma could garner a mere 30.15 per cent of the votes.
Pranab’s support cut across party (…)

From the first week of July, Assam has seen widespread clashes between the Bodo tribals and the Bengali Muslims living in the Bodoland Terrtiorial Autonomous Districts in southern Assam. It is primarily and basically a fight for land. The land hunger of the Bengali Muslims leads them to grab land by encroaching on reserve forests and wild life sanctuaries. The Bodos resent and resist this and try to dislodge them. This leads to clashes. In fact the Bodos do not want non-Bodos to live in (…)

The NCERT brought out a series of textbooks in Political Science, as in other subjects, based on syllabi which were formulated after the new National Curriculum Framework (NCF-2005) developed by it was adopted. There was ample justification for preparing a new national curriculum framework as the NDA Government, which had converted the NCERT into an instrument of communalisation of school education (through, among others, its NCFSE-2000) was thrown out of office in 2004.
The (…)

This article was written much before the presidential poll but refused publication by several newspapers. Finally it appeared in Kashmir Times (July 18, 2012) from where it is being reproduced with due acknowledgement. 
— Editor
That Pranab Mukherjee will move into Rashtarpati Bhavan after the election in July is a foregone conclusion. He has the blessing of Ms Sonia Gandhi and the support of several UPA partners, the Hindu Rightwing Shiv Sena, the middle roader JD (U) and the Leftist (…)

Hundreds of encounter deaths take place in the country every year and over the years this number has multiplied into thousands. Ask any layman and he will tell you that not more than a few hundred of these cases might have been those of actual encounters. Yet no policeman or personnel of para-military forces gets booked on charges of murder even after depriving others of their basic human right of life. Since no case is registered against any of them, no investiga-tion takes place and no (…)

The following is the valedictory address delivered by the former Union Minister, Eduardo Faleiro, at the International Conference on “Decolonisation, Development and Diaspora: The Afro-Indian Experience” held at the Goa International Centre earlier this month.
We celebrated last year the golden jubilee of Goa’s independence from colonial rule and I am glad that the Indian Council of World Affairs decided to hold this Conference in the context of Goa’s liberation.
The Conference was to be (…)

Ever since the Thorat Committee submitted its report on the political science textbooks of the NCERT of class IX to XII recommending deletion of some cartoons, changing of some words, a gnat war has started against Thorat personally. M.S.S. Pandian, who agreed to be a member of the Committee, never attends the meetings of the Committee but writes a dissent note straightaway sitting at home. If ethics are left to winds, anybody can attack anybody. Pandian is a good historian no doubt. But (…)