2013

by Ather Farouqui
It is customary to extend one’s gratitude on receiving such a respected award and I have no intention of departing from this ritual. Besides my heartfelt thanks to the Sahitya Akademi, I also want to express my gratitude to the honourable members of the jury as well as Professor Gopi Chand Narang, whom I count among the most active and vibrant presidents of the Akademi. As its President he was instrumental in securing a place of prominence for Urdu in the Akademi, a no (…)

Remembering Nikhilda on the occasion of his birth centenary fills me with memories of long years of working with him. It was in January, 1967, that I was introduced to Nikhilda by Shri Pannalal Das Gupta, the veteran communist revolutionary of Bengal who had, on coming out of jail in 1962, started Compass, the first weekly newsmagazine in Bengali. A budding reporter, I was then working with the weekly. I had just come back from Nagaland where I had been sent by Shri Das Gupta to work as a (…)

by Dadan Upadhyay
This is true. Had I not met Nikhilda, I would have never come to the profession of journalism. As my “guru”, he initiated me to journalism.
My memory flashes back to the early 1960s when I was still a student and had come to Delhi for admission into the University. When I arrived in Delhi, my father was out of the city for some days and had left a note for me to contact Nikhilda who at that time was living in an MP flat, allotted to Renudi, in North Avenue. I went to (…)

by Murzban Jal
The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image that flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again. —Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History.
However it is impossible to arrive at a workers’ state with empty hands. Only political invalids...can speak of a peaceful, constitutional road to socialism. The constitutional road is cut by trenches held by the fascist bands. There are not a few trenches (…)

EDITORIAL
The country has been witness to extraordinary developments in the last few days. The results of the elections to the five State Assemblies of Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Rajasthan have dealt a stunning blow to the largest constituent of the ruling alliance at the Centre, its rout in the Hindi heartland exemplified by its humiliating defeats in Rajasthan and Delhi where it was in power for five and 15 years respectively. In fact the outcome in Delhi has been (…)

The shivering cold nights of wintry Paush have passed. And now the dew drops of a morning like tears, shed by mothers, sisters, wives, as they gaze self-forgetfully at the mounds where their darlings lie buried.
For the last-nine months the soil of this land was drenched with bubbling blood. And now the fecund earth lies under the warm and golden sun and brings forth her dower of flowers of the season. There is a smell of ripening harvest in the air. Drowsy with this atmosphere or through (…)

by Anuradha Talwar and Biraj Patnaik
Contrary to whatever Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said about the success of India at the WTO Ministerial in Bali, the authors present a completely different picture. It is being published here for the benefit of our readers.
India has wilted under pressure from the US and agreed to accept conditionalities that were not part of the G-33 proposal. This is clear from the text of the agreed draft.
What India has traded away:
1. Anand Sharma (…)

TRIBUTE
The following are excerpts from the letter from prison sent by Nelson Mandela to the Indian Council for Cultural Relations expressing sincere gratitude for the presentation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding for 1979 to him.
Our people cannot but feel humble, at the same time proud, that one of their number has been selected to join the distinguished men and women who have been similarly honoured in the past...
In the upsurge of anti-colonial and (…)

What man or woman, friend or foe, Could deny to you, even in the worst Of pique, your colossal due as a man Above the customary frailty of man? That you could shake the hand that locked In the best of your youth behind a dungeon, And share the glory of your second coming With the beast that wished you dead, And open your heart, and a million hearts Of diverse hue, to those that deserved Not reconciliation but comeuppance— This was staggering-human beyond Belief or apprehension. In doing so, (…)

IMPRESSIONS
There is no democracy like Indian democracy. Yashodhara Raje Scindia, the BJP candidate in Madhya Pradesh, declared in her election affidavit that she had a dinner set worth Rs 1.54 crore. Was that worth mentioning in a country where a Sheaffer pen was announced for Rs 3 crore plus last week? But when an indulgent reporter asked about the dinner trinket, the candidate smiled indulgently and said: “What’s the big deal, we are royals.”
Well said, your Royal Highness. In the (…)