2012

by HARGOPAL SINGH
The President of India (Rashtrapati) is not vested with any powers worth the name—executive, administrative or other—under the Constitution of India. Articles 53, 74, 75 and 79, if read in conjunction with one another, make this abundantly clear. The Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act 1978 leaves no scope for any misunderstanding about the actual position of the President. It reads: “There shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister at the head to aid (…)

by MASTRAM KAPOOR
The presidential election 2012 provided a golden opportunity for the unity of progressive forces as against the forces of status quo and crony capitalism in the guise of neo-developmentalism that by plundering the earth enrich the few and push the masses to gradual extinction. The opportunity was, however, lost not by circumstances but by utter poverty of imagination and will on the part of the progressives consisting of Communists and Socialists as well as complete loss (…)

by S. SUDHAKAR REDDY
The election of the Rashtrapati, scheduled for July 19, has sparked intense debate in the media as well as in political circles as differences in major political groupings have come to the surface and there are speculations on possible political realignments. But most of the speculations seem to be out of context because any realignment has to materialise on the basis of concrete socio-economic policies.
The National Executive of the Communist Party of India, (…)

Compared to many of the Western countries, India has a poor harvest of memoirs and reminiscences by those who had held important positions in the wielding of the machinery of power. Many British statesmen, generals and administrators left behind copious documents from memory which provide the raw material of history. In contrast, we seem to have developed an unhistorical tradition, neglecting this important aspect of recording history.
It is in this context that one has to evaluate the (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS On July 2 this year was observed the fortieth anniversary of the Simla Agreement arrived at the summit meeting between PM Indira Gandhi and her Pakistani counterpart, Z.A. Bhutto. On this occasion we are reproducing the ‘Editor’s Notebook’ which N.C. wrote immediately after the Simla Accord in July 1972 and the piece he wrote for The Tribune in 1995 on the controversy over what was agreed upon at Simla—it was subsequently published in Mainstream as well by arrangement (…)

The birth and death anniversaries of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, acclaimed on all hands as the architect of modern Bengal, fall on the same day—July 1. This year it was his 130th birth and 50th death anniversaries on that day. He took charge of West Bengal at a critical juncture. He was sworn in as the Chief Minister on January 23, 1948. The very next month, in February, the Communist Party of India held its Second Party Congress in Calcutta. The party Congress threw out the then General (…)

The Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have tryst with doom. In the wake of scams and scandals in the Congress-run government, the BJP was gaining ground. Its performance in Parliament was comparatively better and its younger leadership assertive and more meaningful. But once again the old RSS men, who have been riding the party, have brought it back to square one.
First, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi joined issue with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on the concept of secularism; and (…)

“EX-YU” SUCCESSOR STATES AND THIRD WORLD MOVEMENT
The following article is based on a short statement made by the author at the Seventh European Centre for Peace and Development (ECPD) Conference on Reconciliation, Tolerance and Human Security in the Balkans—“New Balkans and the European Union Enlargement”—held in Milocer, Montenegro, October 21-22, 2011. In the text, “Yugoslavia” has been used to refer to post-World War II Yugoslavia, called the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (…)

One of the few bold steps that the Mamata Banerjeeled government took after coming to power in West Bengal was to pass the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011. On September 28, 2011, after a challenge by Tata Motors, a single judge Bench of the Calcutta High Court upheld the Act to be constitutional. But, a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court declared the Act to be ‘unconstitutional and void’ on June 22, 2012. The reactions of the Singur villagers to the verdict vary, (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by PREET PAL SINGH
Federalism, Democracy and Conflict Resolution by Arshi Khan and Kushal Pal (eds.); Macmillion Publishers India Ltd., Delhi; 2012; pp; xxi + 380; Price: Rs 900.
Politics of all types need democracy for conflict resolution. But pluralist politics also require federalism for this purpose because it is only the accommodation model of nation-building that can guarantee conflict resolution in them.
The adoption of a unitarian design is bound to lead to their (…)