2012

It is strange that those who claim to be radicals on Kashmir are found wanting when put at a position to propose a solution. The government-appointed interlocutors, Dilip Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and M.M. Ansari, are said to be forward-looking persons. But their suggestions have turned out to be pro-status quo. In comparison, the ruling National Conference, despite its over-dependence on New Delhi, has been pursuing a more progressive path and demanding the pre-1952 status when the Centre (…)

At a time when land reforms are being increasingly forgotten and neglected by the Union Government as well as most State governments, a Gandhian campaign called ‘Jana Satyagraha’ has been trying ceaselessly to take the message of revising and strengthening land reforms to all parts of the country.
At the centre of this campaign is an organi-sation ‘Ekta Parishad’, led by senior Gandhian activist, P.V. Rajagopal. However, as the cam-paign has progressed, nearly one thousand organisations in (…)

Unspoken, unnoticed, India’s Syria policy recently took a circle to return to where it all began at the ‘Friends of Syria’ meet in Tunis on February 24. The visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was projected by our spin-doctors as a ‘snub’ to Washington, but in reality, South Block obediently follows the footsteps of the United States and Gulf Cooperation Council states in West Asia.
The ‘Friends of Syria’ was a coalition of Western countries and Saudi Arabia and Qatar that (…)

by BANSIDHAR PRADHAN
“The occupation will not remove us from our land. We will stay in our land as the roots of the olive tree,” reads a poster inside the tiny Media Centre of Bil’in, a small village in the Ramallah Governorate. Of late, Bil’in has become a symbol of non-violent resistance against the Apartheid Wall, which Israel has built, and is still continuing to build, on Palestinian land. The valiant struggle of the villagers has attracted international attention ever since they (…)

While terminating its 20th Congress at Kozhikode in Kerala the Marxist Communist Party (CPM) excluded V.S. Achuthanandan from its PB, the only member of the first generation of Kerala Communists headed by E.M.S. Namboodiripad. VS was the CM upto the recent Assembly elections. The State Secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, had persuaded the PB when it met at Thiruvananthapuram not to field VS in the Assembly elections. But the people demonstrated and forced the PB to field VS in the Assembly (…)

As I complete 90 years of my residence on this earth and ponder over my long career as a teacher, I am struck by the happy accidents that marked its progress alongwith the missed opportunities to learn a little more and become a better teacher. Of such accidents three stand out in my memory.
The happiest accident occurred at the very beginning of my career as a teacher in Delhi University. A teacher in Delhi College, I got the opportunity to teach ‘political thought’ to the post-graduate (…)

Barack Obama faces bigger terrorist threats to his life than Manmohan Singh. But we don’t see security guards standing behind Obama when he delivers a public speech. When Manmohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi speaks, earphoned and presumably armed guards stand right behind them. Narendra Modi or Mayawati (as CM) would not move about without those menacing, finger-on-the trigger machinegun soldiers encircling them—a spectacle unseen in any other democracy in the world.
It is true that no Asian (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
Cowardice takes many forms. In may manifest itself in abject surrender, or, instead, in dramatic defiance. Indira Gandhi opted for high drama when she failed to appear before the Shah Commission to testify to only some specific cases of alleged excesses during Emergency. Despite an appearance of defiance—put up in the statement drafted by the battery of lawyers hired by her—Indira Gandhi today is the picture of total insecurity, and here lies her cowardice and not (…)

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) is taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 21-22, 2012. It is being called Rio+20 as the Conference is being held 20 years after the UN-sponsored “Earth Summit” that took place in the same city in 1992. For two days multilateral diplomacy would be at work while discussing environmental issues, water, sanitation, corporate responsibility. The following article by a distinguished expert is being published here as a (…)

Three events of the past few days have captured national attention.
The murder of Brahmeshwar Singh, who headed Bihar’s outlawed private militia of landlords (Ranvir Sena), in Katira Mohalla under Nawada P.S. in the Bhojpur district on June 1 triggered a violent backlash that started in the district town of Arrah and spread to even the capital, Patna. Formed in the early 1990s, the Ranvir Sena targeted Dalits in central and south Bihar at a time the Dalit cause was spearheaded by the (…)