2014

With the change of regime at the Indian Centre, things that never happened before are beginning to happen.
A venerated Shankaracharya, who has to his credit sound, secular-humanist wisdom, exem-plified especially during the dark days of communal assault on the Babri mosque at Ayodhya (1990-1992), has out of nowhere taken upon himself to proffer the admonition that those who worship the Saibaba of Shirdi may be somewhat suspect as Hindu devotees because the Baba was used to chanting “Allah (…)

Last month (June) the Intelligence Bureau (IB) submitted a report marked SECRET to the Union Home Ministry about some NGOs which, the IB alleged, were “making concerted efforts to ‘take down’ Indian development projects”. The activities of these NGOs, the IB said, had ended in a retardation of the GDP growth rate by two to three per cent. More specifically, it charged the NGOs with organising campaigns and movements against nuclear and coal-fired thermal power plants with the money they (…)

by Mustafa Khan
The Intelligence Bureau and Central Bureau of Investigation became obsequious to Narendra Modi even before he assumed the office of the PM. This is well illustrated in the personal experience of the former Solicitor General of India, Gopal Subramanium. “On May 15, 2014 none other than the Chief Justice of India told me that there was a complete integrity check and that the Intelligence Bureau has given me a clean chit. Now, immediately after a new government comes in, you (…)

The West is known for its rich tradition of being a constant champion of the values of democracy such as equality, freedom, rights, and justice. It has legitimised its positive intervention in all wars against democracy across the world. However, while the success of democracy lies in strengthening decentralisation, the democratic capitalist countries have campai-gned for the corporate world which privileges an integrated market economy that prevents redistribution of the basic productive (…)

by P. Sakthivel
Unlike in the previous Parliament elections, this time the people’s verdict was very clear and they voted the BJP to come to power. By securing 282 seats the BJP has formed the government under the leadership of Narendra Modi. The incredible electoral campaign by Narendra Modi, the BJP’s electoral alliance, rampant corruption during the UPA’s rule, sharp increase in inflation etc. have finally paved way the for the success of the BJP in these elections.
The Congress, with (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The unprovoked shooting down of an Iranian civilian airbus by the US warships in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf on July 3 killing nearly 300 innocent lives, has shocked the world public.
In a pathetic bid to cover up this ghastly crime by the American armada, President Reagan called it “a terrible human tragedy” but sought to justify it by saying that it was “a proper defensive action” by the US Navy. Through a series of false insinuations, the (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Capital in the Twentyfirst Century by Thomas Piketty; Harvard University Press, London; 2014.
This important book is in the tradition of the classical political economy of Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx. It is based upon fifteen years of research by the author, a French economist, who teaches at the Paris School of Economics.
In recent decades, too much of economics has been based upon abstract theory and mathe-matical modelling without looking at the trajectory of (…)

The outcome of the 16th parliamentary elections (2014) has thrown up intractable surprises, if not enigma, defying understanding and inter-pretation. Two prominent players—Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)—strangely stand wiped out from the Indian Parliament. The former is a national and the latter a regional party, though both have the record and experience of holding the reins of power—the BSP in Uttar Pradesh and DMK in Tamil Nadu. In UP, the Bharatiya Janata (…)

Vidya Munsi breathed her last at the age of 95 in the morning of July 7 at Kolkata. She was not only a leading figure in the Indian women’s movement but also one of the country’s veteran journalists. She was indeed the first woman journalist in Kolkata.
Born in a Gujarati family deeply influenced by Gandhism in Bombay on December 5, 1919, Vidya Kanuga was a brilliant student. She stood first among girl students and third in the general category in the Matriculation exami-nation and joined (…)

EDITORIAL
In his first major global outing at Fortaleza, Brazil to attend the BRICS Summit, the country’s new PM Narendra Modi has been able to successfully project India’s international image while confidently establishing himself as an important player in the multilateral fora. India was given the presidency of the just set up New Development Bank of the organisation that is to be headquartered in Shanghai. This was the product of close Sino-Russian coordination during the negotiations (…)