2015

What Delhi inaugurated at the beginning of the year, Bihar has sealed at the end, namely, the revolt of reason against supervening gumption. Facts and arguments are once again to the fore, defeating bare-faced assertion and false appropriation. Little women and men together have turned back the swagger of the all-assuming colossus, deluded into insufferable hubris by consuming self-love and supercilious theatrics of personal power.
A year-and-a-half has proved too long a career for muscle, (…)

Trust the Indian voters to protect the basic constitutional principles whenever these are most threatened. This time it was the turn of the politically alert Bihar voter to intervene on behalf of the cherished heritage of social harmony and based on it the constitutional principles of equality for all religious communities as well as secularism.
Certainly other issues, including those related to development, issues were also important and the Nitish Government has a good record on this. (…)

The RJD, JD (U) and Congress coalition has inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP and its allies in the just concluded Vidhan Sabha election 2015, successfully driving a lesson on political morality with desirable significance. It will help the vanquished see the intolerance, arrogance and aggression that jeopardised the civil society and peaceful life of the masses. In this context, it is only natural to focus on the reasons and factors for the victory of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress triumvirate (…)

The massive victory of the Laloo-Nitish coalition in the Bihar Assembly elections signifies a verdict against the politics of hate and intolerance preached by the Modi-Amit Shah regime after the BJP came to power. It is also significant that the electoral verdict has belied the electoral forecasts of the corporatised media. The lone exit poll, the Axis exit poll, had predicted 169-183 seats for the grand Laloo-Nitish alliance, but its tally was withheld by CNN-IBN. The channel advertised the (…)

You inaugurated your first flush Of youth by shoring up innocent Blood in the bylanes of your Beloved city. And then never Once looked back from doing what Had to be done to keep kashmiris Of all definition together against The hate-mongering, bigoted Sectarian. You wrote and spoke Fearlessly on behalf of the human, Never letting the petty-minded Ruffle your masterly composure. Not least of your contributions Is the daughter you gave us— Schooled in the steel of your Conviction that it is in (…)

I was on my way to Peshawar from Lahore to meet Khan Abdul Wali Khan, son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi. My friend and I stopped at Abottabad, halfway, to have a cup of tea. The radio continuously blared that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been assassinated by her Sikh security guards.
It was a BBC broadcast. The All India Radio announcement came four hours later. There was no question of our proceeding further. But it was too late to catch the flight back to Delhi from (…)

The Sahitya Akademi is India’s premier institution of letters, with a stated commitment to “promoting Indian literature throughout the world”.
Although I do not believe that awards are a measure of the work we do, I would like to add the National Award for Best Screenplay that I won in 1989 to the growing pile of returned awards. Also, I want to make it clear that I am not returning this award because I am “shocked” by what is being called the “growing intole-rance” being fostered by the (…)

Fundamental freedoms, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of movement are under serious threat in our country. Never in the history of independent India, we were told what kind of food we may eat and what we cannot eat, what kind of music we may hear and what we cannot, which books we may read or not read. Groups of self-appointed cultural and religious police aligned to the ruling party are roaming the streets intimidating, threatening and killing people with impunity. (…)

When diplomats from seventeen countries sit down together for the first time in a particular format and after “a frank and constructive discussion” for over seven hours manage to find common ground to issue a joint statement spelling out in nine points their “mutual understanding”, although “substantial differences remain” regarding an acute regional conflict, that is a commendable effort—especially, when it is about “the grave situation in Syria and how to bring about an end to the violence (…)

by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
The results of the panchayat elections in UP are indicative of the direction towards which the political power is shifting. Although these elections are not contested on party lines and are apolitical by nature, parties do support the candidates. The SP, the ruling party, emerged as the largest party. The BJP had entered the fray with the objective to rehearse the ensuing Assembly elections after two years. The Congress and BSP had also attempted to recapture (…)