2014

There is both jubilation and restraint in the air that after the financial crises in the global, particularly Western, financial system, a practical manifestation of alternative, arguably supple-mentary, agencies has emerged in the form of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) set up by the BRICS countries at their sixth annual summit in Fortaleza, Brazil. The exhilaration could be integral to the materialisation of an idea that has been on the anvil for (…)

by Shyam Saran
The sixth BRICS Summit, which has just ended in Brazil, marks the transition of a grouping based hitherto on shared concerns to one based on shared interests.
Since the inception of BRICS (bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in 2009, it has been seen as a mainly flag-waving exercise by a group of influential emerging economies, with little in terms of convergent interest other than signalling their strong dissatisfaction over persistent Western (…)

by Asif Nazar
The world is as vulnerable to liquidity shocks as it was earlier. There is no foreseeable escape at present. But a grouping of nations based upon strength and conviction is the need of hour. These groups may or may not be as cohesive as groups formed by the developed nations but could be as determined and professional as groups representing developed economics. The will-power and determination of such groups may act as shields during crises. BRICS is one such group, though (…)

Imagine renowned poet Rabindranath Tagore seeking admission to the Calcutta Club, a preserve of the British, and getting rejected. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the legendary Urdu poet, receiving a similar treatment at Lahore’s Punjab Club in Pakistan, and Nazrul Islam at the Dhaka Club. In all these cases, the public outrage would have been difficult to assuage.
The White rulers saw to it that the leading clubs in a country where they had ruled remained an exclusive place for them and their elitist (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The following article, which appeared in this journal sixteen years ago, happened to be the last contribution of N.C. in Mainstream. It is being reproduced now due to its relevance in the context of the External Affairs Minister’s latest assertion in Parliament that the Modi Government was following the footsteps of the one headed by I.K. Gujral on West Asia.
Outgoing Prime Minister Inder Gujral can hardly take the credit for his quietude over the American response (…)

Know that henceforth ICHR shall be known as Indian Council of Historical Reconstruction (not Research). “Research” being a species of subversive activity which “secularists” have engaged in for some six decades to integrate this ancient civilisation with the depraved Christian West, it is time to dump research and undertake reconstruction.
Please understand that reconstruction does not mean the repair or renovation of monuments and such like, although their renaming, as we shall show, is (…)

India is a land of surprises, say many.
And how can Bihar, which they say has been witness to a glorious past, be an exception. Of course nobody could have imagined that ‘surprise of surprises’ or (should I call) ‘mother of all surprises’ would be reserved for the Bihar Police. In fact it was one lifetime experience for all of them there where they found how ‘Rs 50,000 can balloon into Rs 1.14 crore’.
The central character in the yet unfolding drama is Giriraj Singh, an RSS activist (…)

by Sri Ram Pandeya
The BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) could not win any seat in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections. However, the BSP seems to have retained a lot of its vote-base in UP (Uttar Pradesh) as it polled around 20 per cent of the vote-share (even when the Modi wave had reduced any other factor in the voting pattern as redundant) but could not win any seat due to the communal polarisation in the first-past-the-post system.
Even when one of the national parties could achieve a (…)

by Mouli Dey
Although the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may appear to be ‘accomodative’ in rhetoric, in reality and action it still remains communal. It had failed to shed off its orthodox Hindu fundamentalist ideas. Several instances during the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections 2014 bear testimony. The gesture of tolerance towards the Muslims lacks credibility. The manifesto of the BJP still echoes the desire of the party to walk on the line of mandir—masjid politics when it expresses (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Minority appeasement, a game that helps no minority. But it can cut up the country into communal bits. A. K. Antony is a politician who never ruffles a feather. His style is to speak through silences and to act through suspended animation. But suddenly he ruffled every feather in every party with a seemingly simple statement: That appeasing minorities for political gains has helped communal forces to grow. Shock waves spread across the political spectrum. The rush of protests, (…)