2014

by Arun Srivastava
The threat of feudal violence has started resonating in rural Bihar. The manner in which the feudal forces had started taking refuge in the BJP in the wake of the Lok Sabha elections had given rise to the apprehension that the future was not bright for the rural poor, particularly the Dalits and Mahadalits, as was being tried to make out.
The major feudal action took place just a month ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. On March 23, villagers of Repura in the Ara Lok (…)

This article was sent quite sometime ago, but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.
A simple road accident in the Tauru town of the Mewat district on June 8, 2014, so common all over India, resulting in one casualty, triggered communal violence disturbing the communal harmony Mewat is known for. Even during partition and demolition of the Babri Masjid, Mewat remained an island of harmony. To understand this paradox a team of the Haryana Insaaf Society comprising Prof D.R. (…)

by Pranjit Agarwala
The former DGP of Assam Shankar Barua’s suicide because of the multi-crore Saradha chit-fund scam has not only shocked the country but has also shaken the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Whatever the merits of the unproven allegations, the fact that the CBI’s actions created circumstances which forced an officer with thirtyeight years of meritorious service to take his own life exposes the intrigues and intricacies within the administrative system and the dirt (…)

On November 3 this year falls Nikhil Chakravartty’s 101st birth anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing three of his writings. The first one is one of his earliest articles, published under the peudonym ‘Vanguard’ in The Calcutta Municipal Gazette (September 13, 1941) during World War II. The second article appeared as the Editor’s Notebook in Mainstream at the height of the Emergency. We are also reproducing tributes to his abiding memory by V.R. Krishna Iyer, Madhu Dandavate and (…)

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! Dear Nikhil is dead. Is he? It is blaspheme to say he is dead. He dwells in the hearts of millions within Bharat and all over the globe. ‘Death, be not proud...for those whom thou think’st thou does overthrow, Die not, poor death, nor yet can’st thou kill them.’

COMMUNICATION
There are widespread apprehensions that the rural employment guarantee provisions are likely to be significantly diluted or restricted in the near future. This can take the form of restricting the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to some limited areas of the country. Secondly, the budget provisions can be curtailed further from the existing low levels so that the guarantee aspect of this essentially demand-driven programme is even more (…)

by Saumitra Mohan
With the change of guard at the Centre, lots of initiatives are being conceived. Newer schemes and programmes are being contemplated to bring about a positive turnaround in the socio-economic life of common India. Many extant programmes are also being given a makeover. The new enthusiasm and fresh thinking are definitely laudable and so far have been contagious given the positive vibes generated among the hoi polloi. All these initiatives, however, are yet to be tested (…)

by Saket Bihari
“The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth. It is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.” Ecclesiastes
Virtual Reality is a kind of rigmarole of offsetting the tried and tested realism of day-to-day life wherein the hoi polloi do not get the opportunity to rise beyond the purported media construct. The matrix of reality and hyper-reality do not get an opportunity to co-exist together but the idiom of progress and industrial-cyber (…)