2013

ON MARX’S BIRTH ANNIVERSARY
On May 5 this year was observed the one hundred and ninetyfifth birth anniversary of Karl Marx. On this occasion, while remembering the immortal revolutionary, we are publishing the following article.
Marx was giant of a scientist who put socialism on a scientific basis by criticising utopian socialism. In his scientific approach, he can be put along with Newton, Darwin, Einstein and most other natural and social scientists. In fact he discovered more than (…)

The one hundred and fiftysixth anniversary of the Great Indian Revolt of 1857 has been observed this month. It began in Meerut on May 6, 1857 though the spark of the Revolt was lit by Mangal Pandey at Barrackpore earlier that year. In that context we are publishing the following piece.
The Mewat region, spread over parts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, is known to be a communally sensitive area. Its impor-tance increases due to its proximity to Delhi—a significant part of the (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Goebbels has come alive in West Bengal. The collapse of the Saradha Chit Fund, which has ruined lakhs of poor people of Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal, Assam and Odisha, has exposed the worst nature of political deceit and lack of transparency in governance in West Bengal notwithstanding the claim of the Chief Minister otherwise. At least ten people, investors and agents, have committed suicide during the last fortnight. What has been most shocking is the posture of innocence (…)

May 9 this year marked Rabindranath Tagore’s 152nd birth anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing the following poem by a Bangladesh poet that was first published in Mainstream fortytwo years ago (April 3, 1971).
For Rabindranath
If they cut me into the finest mince-meat,
all of me—every bit of my flesh and blood—
will remain Bangla,
all my heart’s love and pain,
sorrow and solace
will remain Bengali.
Bangla’s agony is great.
But apart from this agony of Bangla
I (…)

On May 2, 2013 the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) demanded action against all those who played any part in the assault on the Indian prisoner, Sarabjit Singh, who died in a hospital on May 1, and called upon Islamabad and Delhi to take urgent measures to prevent the incident from undermining bilateral ties and to improve the lot of detainees from the other country in each other’s prisons.
In a statement issued in Lahore, the Commission said: “Not even the most naïve person can (…)

As we go to press, the body of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian death-row convict who spent 22 years in a Pakistani prison before he was brutally injured in the Kot Lakhpat Jail six days ago on April 26 (he died late last night in Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital having succumbed to his grievolts injuries in the skull and brain in particular), has reached Amritsar by air after all the bureaucratic procedural delays and is due to be taken to his ancestral village for the last rites.
The barbaric attack (…)

Leader and activists of all parties advocating a separate State of Telangana held a two-day dharna at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on April 29 and 30, 2013 during the Parliament session to reiterate their demand for a Telangana State. The following document was distributed at the dharna. It is a statement from the Telangana Joint Action Committee. It is being reproduced here for the benefit of our readers.
The Telangana people are struggling for a separate State for this region for about the (…)

by M.N. Sharma
According to foreign experts, Russian researchers have collected sufficient data through their probes to substantiate the boundaries of Russia’s continental shelf. Following a three-month-long geological-and-physical expedition Arctic-2012 to validate the outer boundaries of the Russian continental shelf, researchers gathered more than 22,000 rock samples from the floor of the Arctic Ocean. All these samples were found to be of local origin and not deposited by current. The (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The gruesome killing of three—a girl and two young men—at Mehrana, a village near Mathura on the UP-Rajasthan border on March 27 has spread shock waves.
The inhumanity of the lynching of the three on the order of the village panchayat brings out the grotesque dimension of the prevailing social inequity in our country. The original report said that the girl had eloped with one of the young men, while the other had helped them to go away. The girl belonged to a Jat (…)

IMPRESSIONS
This piece was written before Justice J.S. Verma’s death last month. However, as it is of considerable relevance it is being published now.
We don’t hear anything these days about Justice P.D. Dinakaran or Justice Soumitra Sen or Justice K.G. Balakrishnan.
That is a relief. We do hear about Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, Justice J.S. Verma, Justice K.T. Thomas, Justice Santosh Hegde and Justice Markandeya Katju. That is a reassurance. This is one league where The Good (…)