2013

COMMUNICATION
Communal fascism is the greatest enemy of Indian democracy as it aims at transforming India into a Hindu Rashtra and establish a Hindu state and is deadly opposed to the distinctive features of Indian national culture—pluralism, unity in diversity, equal rights for all Indian citizens, equal respect for all religions and the rule of law.
It is, therefore, lamentable that our national leaders including the President of India and Prime Minister had paid tributes—reserved for (…)

MUSINGS
Hopefully Chairperson of the Press Council of India Justice Markandey Katju’s words come in as a hurdle in Narendra Modi’s march towards New Delhi. Katju spoke out loud and clear, and at an apt and appropriate juncture, when the EU and the rest of the world seemed trying to overlook the ghosts of the Gujarat pogrom. Mind you, with such blatant ease as though all that Modi and his men did was kill mosquitoes or flies precisely eleven years ago! The EU ought to realise that though (…)

by Asghar Ali Engineer
Recently we read with great pain that the extremists in Pakistan killed several women who were active in administering the polio dose to the children. They think it is an international conspiracy to reduce the population of Muslims in the world as the polio dose makes a person impotent. Some Muslims and Imams of mosques in India too thought likewise and asked Muslims in their Friday sermons not to allow social workers to administer the polio dose to their children. (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
After the setback suffered in the June by-election reverses, the Congress-I leadership—that is, in effect, Rajiv Gandhi himself—was expected to take a serious view of the declining prestige, influence and authority of his regime and strive to adopt remedial measures. In the six weeks since the by-election results, the only tangible measure taken has been the reshuffle of the Union Cabinet in which berths were found for some of the Chief Ministers who had to be (…)

Whenever I see the Dalai Lama either in person or in picture, I feel that here is a man who presides over a receding culture of thousands of years and realises that it has a problematic future. Tibet is the home of this culture, a country which is under China that knows only one culture, that of communism which obliterates everything else.
The new home of Tibetan culture is straddling Dharamshala, a hilly territory in India. However the Dalai Lama may try, the Tibetan culture he represents (…)

The passing away of Subrata Sinha, the former Deputy Director General of the Geological Survey of India, on January 19 (born 1932), removes from the midst of down-to-earth environmentalists and earth-scientists an exceptional character for, indeed, he was a personality with exceptional scientific wisdom, an equally strong faith in traditional knowledge and its practitioners at the grassroots, and a delightful sense of humour. This singular quality endeared him to activists, devoted to the (…)

The Sri Lankan Government and the inter-national community are gearing up for a major confrontation in Geneva in March over the alleged human rights violations that had occurred in the final stage of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
March 15 and 20 are expected to be two vital dates for the future of Sri Lanka. On March 15, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will consider and adopt the final outcome of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Sri (…)

by Qazi Syed Sajad
A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation. —James Freeman Clarke, Sermon
The untimely, tragic and politically surcharged execution of Parliament attack convict Moha-mmad Afzal Guru has genuinely opened the floodgates of viewpoints and speculations. To this writer, it has led to the emergence of a transitional phase in the Indian political system. The larger picture is that the hanging has done a lot of disservice to the country (…)

Since the last two months the attention of the country and the media has focused on the Mahakumbh Mela on the shores of the holy river Ganga. In the meantime the most sincere devotee of the river has silently gone on a hunger strike to draw attention to the betrayal by the state authorities in not keeping their promises and assurances, given from time to time, to keep the river alive and from death at the hands of greedy men in power.
Professor G.D. Agarwal has been fasting in Amarkantak (…)

by Bishwajit Sen
He was a democrat to the core of his being. He always gave the “other” voice more importance than his own, even if that meant giving up some of his own preferences. One hardly comes across such a person, in the middle-class milieux, amongst writers, editors or creative persons. It is this which made Dipankar Chakraborty stand apart in a crowd.
But it does not mean that he faltered while making choices. When the movement against land acquisition erupted in Singur and (…)