2014

COMMUNICATION
The fact that the BJP has been able to get an absolute majority with just 31 per cent of the total vote-share in the recent Lok Sabha elections has generated a lot of interest. It has been pointed out that never before has any party attained a complete majority with such a low vote-share, the previous low being the 40.8 per cent vote-share obtained by the Congress in 1967 which enabled it to get almost the same number of seats (283) which the BJP has got in 2014 (282) with 10 (…)

EDITORIAL
Almost a week has passed since the results of the 16th Lok Sabha elections came out causing a veritable political earthquake in secular democratic India. It was a massive anti-Congress wave, an inevitable fallout of outgoing PM Manmohan Singh’s disastrous economic policies, that was capitalised to the hilt by the principal Opposition party in Parliament, the BJP, or rather by its prime ministerial aspirant, Narendra Modi, who must be credited with having consequently (…)

Some writers had predicted decimation of INC, with the BJP becoming the single largest party in the 16th Parliament, but doubted whether it would go past the magic figure of 272 on its own. Indeed, Modi contesting from two places indicated that he was not very sure of winning in Varanasi. However, this writer had predicted that the 16th Parliament would not last very long, and that the BJP would come in with a thumping majority in the 17th Parlia-ment. But “India has chosen the BJP” right (…)

COMMUNICATION
On May 12 Mukul Sinha, a tireless crusader for justice and just causes, breathed his last in Ahmedabad. Mukul was a scientist and a scientist-activist who in mid-life took up a new roles as a public interest lawyer and labour activist to fight long legal battles for many just causes, particularly for victims of communal violence, encounter killings and unjust labour practices in Gujarat.
After obtaining a Master’s degree from the the IIT Kanpur, Mukul Sinha joined the (…)

I did not want Narendra Modi to be India’s Prime Minister for ideological reasons. His effort to polarise the country is not in the nation’s interest. But the voters’ choice is different. Modi has earned the right to rule having won through fair and open elections. And he is entitled to pursue his agenda which offers, to use his words, the ‘politics of development and not revenge’. Modi should, however, keep in mind the larger picture, the idea of India.
The idea of India is neither (…)

While the erudite split hairs over the “idea of India”, one cannot help going back to the pages of some fairly common experience. As a middle-class teen Calcuttan, my deep affinity with a football club in the city’s First Division League was fairly representative in taste. So was the choice of a compeer from a different faith, his loyalties residing in a club which announced his religious persuasion, as much as mine did my place of origin across present-day borders. The players belonged to (…)

There is a healthy tradition in democracy of respecting the people’s verdict in elections no matter how troubling this may be in some contexts. This tradition must be certainly followed after the recent historic general elections in India, particularly when the victory of the BJP/NDA is so huge that it could not have been possible without securng the enthusiastic support of the masses, particularly the youth, over vast areas. This also implies a huge personal triumph for Narendra Modi who, (…)

MEDIA
by Anil Chamadia
This article, written before the end of the election process, retains its validity even after full declaration of the poll results.
The Code of Conduct (CC) imposed by the Election Commission (EC) could be effective only if the people, institutions and political outfits feel constrained while attempting to violate it for their vested interests. Since the days of the First Press Commission till 2002, the Press Council of India (PCI) came out with various (…)

Narendra Damodardas Modi’s supporters cannot be blamed for using words like “historic” for their hero’s (or their party’s) victory in the 2014 general election. The superlatives used by the media — the most common being “tsunami” — are, of course, a business necessity and may be dismissed as marketing bilge.
Is the election result a big deal? One view was expressed succinctly by Nirmalangshu Mukherji on FaceBook:
With just 31 per cent of actual votes (21 per cent of electorates, 14 per (…)

A mere perusal of the newspaper reports focussing on the open hearing made it clear that the NHRC had to bite its words to really convey what it heard from victims and also do a lot of explaining over its claims that ‘..[f]uture of the SC community seems to be fairly good in Gujarat as compared to many other States.”