2014

EDITORIAL
Last Sunday (November 9) PM Narendra Modi carried out the first expansion of his Cabinet after being sworn in six months ago.
By making Goa CM Manohar Parrikar a full-time Defence Minister he has sought to rectify the imbalance evident in a single person holding two major Ministries of Finance and Defence (which can never be clubbed together for obvious reasons). Parrikar had doubtless displayed administrative capability as the Goa CM; so his being made the Defence Minister has (…)

IMPRESSIONS
In the midst of all the churnings that are transforming India’s political space, no one is talking about the Communist Parties. Obviously no one cares. The decline and fall of this once promising movement has been so steady and so
foreseeable that they present a sad chapter in history. In a situation where the Congress was detested and the BJP was distrusted, it was no small achievement for the Left to reduce itself from 60 seats in Parliament to 12. The CPI-M
leaders were (…)

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabh- bhai Patel are the two icons of the freedom movement. One was Left-of-the-Centre and the other Right-of-the-Centre but they sank their ideological differences to win freedom.
After independence, the Nehruvian thoughts came to influence the country because he was the most popular leader and his thoughts fitted into the general sentiment of pluralism across the nation. Naturally, the name of Sardar Patel receded.
Prime Minster Narendra Modi has (…)

One of the most inspiring aspects of India’s freedom movement was that it emphasised many-sided constructive activities for creating a better society. While many significant concerns were emphasised, the two most basic concerns were—harmony of all religions for national unity and upliftment of the poor.
It is interesting to see that leaders who found the largest following in the course of the freedom movement emphasised these two basic concerns time and again.
Here we may mention four of (…)

MUSINGS
Is there a broom that can brush aide the suffocating-polluting air around! The atmosphere in this Capital city is so poisonous that most of us are either coughing or sneezing or wheezing or sitting completely sick! Sick and tired of distracting gimmicks. All those hollow moves of swish-swashing dust from here to there, by those BJP brooms, have turned bogus. Walk around the lanes and roads and mohallas and malls, see for yourself those piles of filth have doubled, that stink has (…)

The G-20 Leaders’ Summit will take place on November 15 and 16 in Brisbane, Australia. The Summit is expected to discuss a wide range of global policy issues and challenges from corruption to taxation to employment to financial regulation to growth strategies. It is expected that the Brisbane Action Plan, which would be discussed at the Summit, will outline an action plan which would be implemented by the member-countries in the coming months.
Given the lacklustre approach of the (…)

On the occasion of Jawaharlal Nehru’s 125th birth anniversary on Novermber 14, we are remembering our first PM by reproducing his following words that are highly relevant in the present situation. Thereafter we are, besides reproducing an ‘Editor’s Notebook’ by N.C., carrying some articles on Nehru by noted scholars and writers as well as excerpts from historian Mushirul Hasan’s Fourth D.S. Borker Memorail Lecture, New Delhi, August 24, 2002 [that was published in Mainstream Annual Number (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The week, that marked the twentyfifth anni-versary of the passing away of Jawaharlal Nehru —on May 22, 1989, India projected a political image of its strength and determination before the world which no amount of borrowed arsenal could have achieved. The firing of the intermediate range missile, Agni, hitting a target a thousand kilometres away, was not just an engineering feat, its importance lies in the fact that it was designed and manufactured in India by our (…)

by Sucheta Mahajan
On the eve of the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, it is time to pause and recall some aspects of his contribution to the freedom struggle and the transition to a modern, independent India. He was the quintessential democrat, the upholder of civil liberties, the doughty fighter against communalism, the builder of the republic, the world statesman.
In recent months we have seen in the press a questioning of Nehru’s contribution and legacy. In the past he has (…)

In 1937, the Congress formed Ministries in seven provinces under the Government of India Act of 1935. The massive vote received by the Indian National Congress even under a restricted franchise system aroused new expectations and imparted it with a great moral authority. It created an impression that the day was not far away when the Congress would come to power at the Centre.
In 1938, Subhas Chandra Bose succeeded Nehru as the President of the Indian National Congress and presided over (…)