2013

by Arun Srivastava
The message of the June 21 rally in Kolkata of the intellectuals, writers, poets, theatre and cinema artistes was clear and loud: “Mamata Banerjee, mend your ways. History will not forgive you.” Interestingly, the same civil society had hit the streets of Kolkata in 2007 in her support and against the killings and perpetrating torture on the innocent peasants of Nandigram by the police of the Left Front Government. This time they had come out on the city’s streets (…)

Edward Snowden, in his courageous, principled expose, has brought out how the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on most nations in the world. This spying is clearly to establish or strengthen the USA’s political, economic and military global clout. India is the fifth-most spied-upon nation, even more than China and Russia. Considering that India is the USA’s strategic partner, spying on India is breach of faith. Iran tops the list (14 billion pieces of intelligence); then (…)

The entente cordial over Afghanistan, which was the finest flower of the United States’ “reset” with Russia during Barack Obama’s first term as the President, is wilting.
Moscow has reacted sharply to the triumphalist surprise announcement by senior officials travelling with Obama to the recent Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland regarding the commencement of Afghan peace talks in Doha—though protests from Kabul appear to have put these on hold for the time being.
The talks (…)

The May 29, 2013 drone attack by the United States killing seven people including Waliur Rahman, a top leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has renewed with greater intensity than before a debate that underscores not just anger in Pakistan, but also its helplessness at being able to do little beyond lodging protests. The newly-elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took over a week to summon US Charge d’Affaires Richard Hoagland to the Foreign Office to lodge a formal (…)

Nikhil Chakravartty’s fifteenth death anniversary on June 27 is an occasion not only to recall his contribution to journalism but also to juxtapose that contribution against the present-day media scene. Several leading journalists and others who knew him present their opinions in the following pieces.
Evoking the memory of Nikhilda, as he was universally known, is to return to a different world of Indian journalism. It was in large part before the era of 24-hour television, internet news (…)

by H.K. Dua
Nikhil Chakravartty’s journalism came out of his concern for the country. He would have been worried about both if he was around. Both the nation as well as the media are losing a sense of direction, values and character, required to retain the people’s confidence.
He was certainly one of the most respected journalists of his time, admired by peers of different persuasions, intellectuals, political leaders of different political parties, and NGOs, not only of India, but the (…)

Remembering departed polestars like Nikhil Chakravartty is not pat of the rather tiresome old-is-gold syndrome. Much of the new is also gold—the net that puts knowledge at one’s fingertip, the mobile that turns one’s pocket into an office, the incredible universe of apps. Yet we need to cherish the old because it provides what technology still cannot: a sense of values without which humans lose their humanity. The age of Nikhil Chakravartty—and of Frank Moraes and Chalapathi Rao, of Shamlal (…)

Undoubtedly, the media challenges today are very different from the ones that were faced by the previous generation of journalists. It is a new scene altogether with the competitiveness of 24-hour channels, the compulsion to “break” news—and many channels openly take credit for it, so as to woo more viewers—the “hunger” of the corporate houses to use the media for purposes different than the dissemination of news.
There is the new technology, which facilitates quick access to information, (…)

In 1940, just after doing my matriculation, I received several back issues of Calcutta’s Presidency College magazine, through the courtesy of two co-villagers who were then studying at Presidency College. Those back issues were edited by one Nikhilnath Chakravartty. The college had a tradition of appointing as the editor if its college magazine, a student who had put up a brilliant academic performance in the year just past. This was perhaps the said college’s way of grooming students as (…)

There is no contradiction in terms in describing a gentleman as a gentle colossus. Colossus only indicates the stature. It does not refer to any quality of refinement or rudeness. Nikhil Chakravartty, who was born a year before World War I started, lived through the tumultous events of the twentieth century imbibing both its froth and the essence of its refinement. He was quintessentially a twentieth century intellectual.
Son of a well-off family of the then Calcutta, the second largest (…)