2012

Kobad Ghandy from Tihar Jail is writing on the concept of freedom vis-s-vis present-day society as also in relation to a future just order, bringing out some causes for the failure of the erstwhile socialist states. It will comprise a series of six articles. The first article (covering Part I—The Context) appeared in Mainstream’s Independence Day Special (August 18, 2012), the second one (covering Part II—Search for Freedom through History) in this journal’s September 15, 2012 issue, the (…)

by DIVYA GANGADAR
Introduction
In a highly industrial and mechanised world that we live in today, energy in all forms becomes crucial to the success of a nation. Energy security refers to the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price. With the world’s largest population, a rapidly emerging middle class and the fastest growing export market, China has surpassed the US as the world’s top energy consumer.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China (…)

by B.D.
The organisation of Jan Sansad or People’s Assembly by nearly 56 people’s organisations in New Delhi from November 26 to November 30 is an important milestone in people’s reaffirmation of constitutional vales and their determination to protect these values from the onslaught of various vested interests.
This People’s Assembly was organised at a time of the government’s increasing drift towards anti-people decisions in recent times, and long delays in passing or even discussing (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by B.R.P. BHASKAR
The Scribe Remembered: N. Gopinathan Nair, His Life and Times (Janayugom Gopiye Orkumbol) edited and published by K. Saradamoni; 2012; pp. 482; b&w plates 14, colour plates 10; Rs 450, US $ 25; ISBN: 978-93-5087-055-6
A few years ago the editor of an English language newspaper claimed he was the second most powerful man in India. Such exaggerated claims define the character of celebrity journa-lists today. When a media superstar writes the story of (…)

Introduction
The predominant liberal multi-culturalist model has neglected the very direct encounter with the ‘human rights of the other’. The politics of psychoanalysis as the very core of inter-subjective relations is rooted in an unconscious structural relation to the realm that Lacan refers to as symbolic. What is the relationship of symbolic with human rights? His register of the symbolic is often a difficult concept to unpack. The Lacanian subject can change the destiny of an (…)

The logjam over how to discuss in Parliament the issue of the government’s introduction of FDI in retail has finally been broken today. The Manmohan Singh dispensation, having succeeded in bringing the DMK on board, is now confident of its numbers in the Lok Sabha; and hence it eventually agreed to the Opposition (primarily the BJP and Left) demand for discussion on the subject under relevant rules in both Houses that allow voting at the end of the debate. Such a possibility had been (…)

by MOHAMMAD ALI
A day after the Union Government rolled out cash transfer for subsidies and entitlements, Jan Sansad, a coalition of more than 60 people’s movements, rejected it for being “anti-people”.
Terming the scheme “an attempt by the govern-ment to wash off its hands from the responsibility to provide basic services and social security to its citizens”, the coalition said direct cash transfer will have disastrous impact on the lives of the margi-nalised who are dependent on the (…)

by ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER
The recent attack on Malala Yusafzai, a 14-year-old tribal girl from the Pakhtunkhwah province of Pakistan, shocked not only Pakistan but the whole world. There was near unanimity among the people of Pakistan that the attack was not justified and there were demonstrations against it and collective prayers were organised for her recovery. Even tribal leaders from her town condemned this outrage. This news was carried prominently by the international media. Fortunately (…)

Even as Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old activist who advocated girls’ education, recovers from the bullet shots by the Taliban at Swat in Pakistan, there is no let up in atrocities against women in the subcontinent. Haryana in India witnessed another rape of a Dalit girl and yet another honour killing by the parents of their daughter in the northern part of Pakistan. In Delhi, the national Capital, a married girl committed suicide with her daughter, because her in-laws had not stopped (…)

CAG Vinod Rai’s pained expression on the brazenness of government decisions—obviously alluding to the way decisions have been taken resulting in corrupt deals in the matter of telecom, coal allocations, miscues of allotments of land on political grounds—has understandably touched the raw nerve amongst the politicians, though it has been welcomed by the average person.
Corruption is not merely a moral question. It eats into the vitals of the economy and leads to the loss of faith in the (…)