2014

by V.P. Jain
Modi is hogging all the media limelight by trumpeting his development gospel, a remix of the NDA’s 2004 ‘India Shining’ chorus. Self-obsessed, vain and presumptuous, he has been assiduously working to create a larger than life-size image of himself. Many of his followers even fantasise him as an ‘avatar’, who has desc-ended on earth to redeem the lesser mortals of their miseries, purportedly inflicted on them by the current regime. “Mr. Ashok Singhal, chief patron of the (…)

I see around me a massive failure of memory. Narendra Damodardas Modi headed the pack of which the Supreme Court of India said, in April 2004, “The modern day Neros were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and helpless women were burning,...” (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Modi-modern-day-Nero-SC/articleshow/612448.cms)
The man is now considered by some to be good enough to be the country’s Prime Minister. He is called a “Vikas Purush”, the many large stains (…)

EDITORIAL
As we go to press, news has come that several important personalities from other parties have been making a beeline for the BJP.
The Congress has been worst hit by such defections, a phenomenon not unusual before any general election. However, it would be foolhardy to overlook the problems the BJP itself is facing.
First, party veterans like Murli Manohar Joshi and Lalji Tandon had refused to vacate their seats in UP (Varanasi and Lucknow) for Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh (…)

by Abdul Hayi Ansari
Following the declaration of Modi as the BJP’s candidate [in the Lok Sabha elections] for Varanasi, Kejriwal’s announcement that he may contest against Modi, has given incentive to the local Muslims.
Inquilab’s correspondent contacted some local Muslims on phone who said that the fight between Modi and Kejriwal will be tough and sensible polling by secular voters will create difficulties for the BJP candidate.
It should be remembered that addressing a rally in (…)

I was the correspondent of The Times, published from London, when Neville Maxwell was its South Asia correspondent. He operated from New Delhi and we often discussed matters con-cerning India and other countries, particularly China.
That he was anti-India would be an under-statement. His hatred towards the country was patent in his dispatches. For example, he wrote after the second general election in 1957 that it was the last poll of the country because democracy was not suited to India’s (…)

TRIBUTE
I had met the famous Sardar of “... malice towards one and all” fame under trying circumstances in Mumbai, then Bombay. It was an otherwise pleasant winter afternoon but the occasion was as fraught as any associated with one’s first job interview. The Times of India’s trainee journalism scheme in the early seventies set the bar for the profession in India. After a written test in one’s city of origin, selected candidates were invited to the “Old lady of Bori Bunder”, The Times of (…)

Till a fortnight back nobody could ever imagine that the Ukrainian crisis, triggered by the ultra-nationalists in connivance with the West through an armed coup that overthrew the legitimate President of the country and brought a government full of semi-fascists, would snowball into a Crimean crisis, the worst one after the end of the Cold War. Ultra-nationalists along with their Western masters are completely responsible for this impasse. The problem with the West is that it never got rid (…)

TRIBUTE
Jagat Singh Mehta, a renowned diplomat, a skilful negotiator, a prolific writer and social worker, passed away quietly at his ancestral home in Udaipur on March 6, 2014. By his vision, sense of purpose and sheer hard work, he carved out a special niche and left an indelible mark in the annals of Indian diplomacy. He will be remembered as one of the handful of outstan-ding Foreign Secretaries of the Government of India. He fully utilised the potentialities of this post and in the (…)

[(Dr Rammanohar Lohia’s 104th birth anniversary falls on March 23 this year. Since his birthday coincided with the day of martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, he never wanted his followers to observe or celebrate his birthday. However, we remember him and offer our sincere tribute to the abiding memory of that stormy petrel of the Indian socialist movement on this occasion by reproducing the following article written by him; it appeared in Wheel of History that was first published (…)

by Ravindranath and Ayub Syed
An encounter with the socialist leader would be rather extraordinary without some rough weather but we were not prepared for the squall we ran into the moment we sat down with him in his well-appointed drawing room. He said he would talk only in Hindi. When we remonstrated that one of us had been in the North for only three years, he said he had learnt German in Berlin in three months: “One learns a language only under compulsion.” Finally, he agreed to let us (…)