2014

A fact-finding team, comprising Rajan Singh (Actionaid), Ram Kumar (Dynamic Action Group), Ramdular (National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights—NCdhr), Neetu (Humsafar Support Centre for Women), Shubhangi Singh (AALI) and Shilpi Aggraval (SAKAR Sanstha, Bareilly), visited Katra Sahadatganj village in Dattaganj Block in UP’s Badaun district where the abduction, gang rape and murder of two minor girls allegedly by three brothers Pappu Yadav, Avdesh Yadav, Urvesh Yadav, sons of Vir Yadav, and two (…)

Dear Sir,
I, Dr Nutan Thakur, a social activist working in the field of transparency and accountability in public life present here a few facts brought through a Lucknow-based Hindi daily Nishpaksh Pratidin which are prima facie extremely detrimental and damaging against Sri Nripendra Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, recently appointed through the ordinance way, alleging him to be a CIA agent.
As per the news article “Dagiyon ke acche dinon ki shuruwat: CIA agent hone (…)

I followed the visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to India from his arrival to the departure. I did not find any false note either in his observations or meetings. He did not mention Kashmir. Nor did he meet the separatists who are always keen to have talks with the Pakistani leaders, not the Indians. From all angles, it was a positive and constructive visit.
Still I do not see any breakthrough in the apish stand that the two sides have taken from the time the two countries parted (…)

by R.G. Gidadhubli
Notwithstanding the persisting crisis in the eastern parts of the country, Ukraine has succeeded in holding the presidential election on May 25, 2014. The new President, Petro Poroshenko, is a 48-year-old billionaire and chocolate magnate who was declared as the outright winner getting 54 per cent votes. This was most unexpected as he defeated his closest strong contender, challenger and popular leader being the former Prime Minister and leader of Batkivshchyna Party, (…)

On the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre this week, we are reproducing excerpts from the ‘Political Notebook’ by the Mainstream editor (who was then its associate editor) that appeared in this journal’s June 10, 1989 issue.
China Today and Tomorrow
What began in the early hours of June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen Square in the heart of China’s capital, Beijing, culminated in a veritable bloodbath turning the ‘Square of Heavenly Peace’ into one of earthly hell. ... The stark reality is (…)

EDITORIAL
With Narendra Modi sworn in as the PM of the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre on May 26, a new era of post-independence history has unfolded before our very eyes.
Indeed the mandate in the 2014 elections was not just for the BJP, but for Narendra Modi as the leader of the party. In fact in the team of 45 Ministers sworn in with Modi—23 of them are in the Union Cabinet (while 10 are Ministers of State with independent charge and 12 are Ministers of State)—several of them owe (…)

Relations with Neighbours
Strengthening relations with neighbours should continue to be accorded the highest priority in the foreign policy of the Narendra Modi Government. For, a country is judged by the world through the prism of its neighbours’ perceptions. Besides, relations with neighbours impinge directly on India’s security, both military and non-military. Moreover, due to cultural affinity, geographical proximity and several other commonalities, neighbours are the best and natural (…)

The Lok Sabha election has produced what was easily the worst conceivable outcome by giving an outright majority to the Bharatiya Janata Party under a man who is widely believed to have been complicit in mass killings of Indian citizens belonging to one faith, and who even 12 years on has not been fully exonerated by the country’s legal system despite its compro-mised, semi-functional nature, and vulnerability to diabolical manipulation.
Make no mistake. Despite a limited (31 per cent) (…)

May 27 this year marked Jawaharlal Nehru’s fiftieth death anniversary. On this occasion we remember him by reproducing the following excerpts from his speeches and writings. We are also reproducing N.C.’s Editor’s Notebook in Mainstream on Nehru’s twentieth death anniversary and publishing several articles by academics, scholars, journalists offering tributes to Nehru by highlighting his abiding relevance in the present context.
Nehru for Today
We talk a great deal about democracy but in (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
In the sultry summer morning of May 27, 1964, when Jawaharlal Nehru left the land of his birth and its people whose affection he earned in abundance, nobody in this wide world of India had any idea how this country would look twenty years later, how the life and living of its toiling millions would change, how the nation would conduct itself in the comity of nations. As his funeral cortege wended its way through the vast humanity wrapped up in tearful mourning, the one (…)