2013

BOOK REVIEW
Ghar by Vibhuti Narain Rai (Hindi novel to be published in Urdu in Pakistan).
I was twenty, I won’t let anyone say those are the best years of your life. —Paul Nizan in Eden Arabie
Reading Ghar, the first novel by Vibhuti Narain Rai, first published in 1983, my mind was reflecting on several questions. As I turned the leaves of this heart-wrenching and captivating account of a household, an aged pensioner and his three youthful progenies, in Eastern Uttar Pardesh in (…)

The following is the statement of the Editors Guild of India on the allegations of sexual assault involving the editor-in-chief of Tehelka and a journalist. The statement has been issued by the EGI President, N. Ravi.
The allegations of grave sexual assault made by a journalist of Tehelka against the magazine’s editor-in-chief Tarun Tejpal, are on the face of it shocking and shameful. Such incidents anywhere are condemnable in the strongest terms but the Guild is particularly saddened that (…)

EDITORIAL
As the Sachin fever grips the whole country (not just Mumbai) in the ongoing second India-West Indies Test, the last—that is, the 200th—one being played by the master-blaster, the national political scene remains as murky as ever with rival political parties (including the newly-formed Aam Aadmi Party in the Capital city) trading charges against each other using the choicest of invectives occasionally bordering on the vulgar.
These are, of course, trivialities but they reflect (…)

The Chinese news agency Xinhua had described Dr Manmohan Singh’s visit to China as historic. The fact stems from a past that could facilitate solutions to the problems of the future, at least in our own backyards. Global financial asymmetry, domination, the challenge to hegemony, and so on, are being dealt with extensively in discourse. But the crossroads are showing glimpses of innovation as the US takes a page out of Europe’s book and seeks to provide for all sections of its people. A (…)

I do not know why Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif goes over the same exercise on Kashmir every two-three months. He raised the question at the UN General Assembly and again men-tioned it during his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at New York. Now he has brought up the matter before having talks with President Barack Obama at Washington. Probably, he (Obama) sought his services.
America has reiterated its stand that it considered Kashmir a bilateral issue which the two countries (…)

On the occasion of Jawaharlal Nehru’s 124th birth anniversary on November 14 we are once again remembering our first PM who played such a crucial role in shaping post-independence India. We are reproducing his following words that are quite relevant in the present context.

From N.C.’s Writings
One need not have to be an idol-worshipper to remember what Jawaharlal Nehru stood for, particularly today when one discerns clear neglect of the edifice that he along with his fellow fighters in the freedom struggle had built and left behind. It is of course not fashionable nowadays to be reminded about the legacy left behind by him, and yet as one looks around, there is much in that legacy that can help the nation to chart its course to a future of hope and (…)

Jawaharlal Nehru’s farsighted vision and admirable leadership is responsible for develo-ping modern science in our country. He played a major role in establishing a modern scientific and technological infrastructure and strove to promote scientific temper. Nearly 50 years after his death it is time to review the state of Indian science and scientific temper in the present society.
The launch of the Mars Orbiter spacecraft, scheduled on November 5 from the Satish Dhavan Space Centre SHAR, (…)

by Sukhdev Singh Sohal
India’s high growth story revolves around the economic liberalisation policies of the 1990s. The economic reforms thrive on the foundations of the Indian economy laid down by the Nehruvian model which aimed to achieve a higher rate of growth, rapid industrialisation, modernisation of agriculture, resource mobilisation, self- reliance, reduction in economic inequalities, mitigation of unemployment and reduction in regional inequalities.1 India of today is facing new (…)

WOMEN’S WORLD
by Shruti
The first anniversary of the “Nirbhaya” tragedy will soon be upon us. Doubtless there will be much self-congratulatory backward glancing to cherry-pick the “achievements” of the past year. There is a “stronger” law now against sexual predators. Rapists, whose victims die, may now go to the gallows. Acid attack victims could hope for better justice. And so on. But the toast to these arguable gains would need to be calibrated with a small reality check —hanging a (…)