2015

The much-awaited judgment of the Supreme Court has held on October 19 that the Constitution (Ninetyninth Amendment) Act, 2014 and the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014, are unconstitutional and void and the consequence is that the ‘Collegiums System’ existing prior to the Constitution (Ninetyninth Amendment) Act, 2014 has been declared to be operative.
The Court found fault with the constitution of the National Judicial Appointment Commission, mainly for its composition. (…)

IMPRESSIONS
As everyone knows, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Mark Twain did not specifically mention census because census is statistics. Ten people interpret census figures in ten different ways, all of them being damn lies and damn truths at the same time. That’s the beauty of census statistics: We an use them to suit our purpose.
The 2011 Religious Communities Census testi-fies to this beauty. The Congress-led govern-ment did not release it, for political reasons. The (…)

October 2015 marks the 45th anniversary of the first Congress-Communist Minstry headed by C. Achutha Menon. In the wake of the communal onslaught on all walks of life, a critical re-assessement of the aforementioned Ministry’s noteworthy achievements, as presented in the following article, offers an effective template against fascism.
by Ajayakumar Kodoth
We are just a year shy of the twentyfifth death anniversary of C. Achutha Menon (1913-1991), one of the most respected and best loved (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Kerala has a remarkable capacity of being the harbinger of significant developments in Indian politics. In 1957, a new element in Indian democracy—the Communists in office—appeared for the fist time in Kerala; and less than two years later, was seen the most massive anti-Communist crusade ever organised under the aegis of the Congress with the label of “Liberation Struggle”. The 1965 elections registered the CPM as the most organised political entity in Kerala thereby (…)

by C. Achutha Menon
Kerala has been the laboratory for all kinds of political experiments, especially for various kinds of United Fronts with all sorts of permutations and combinations among a variety of political parties.
Here it was that the Indian National Congress first lost its absolute majority in 1952 and tried to bolster itself up with a coalition with the Tamilnad Congress, a dissident group. Here it was that the first experiments in contesting elections on the basis of a Left (…)

MUSINGS
I have been restless and upset by the disgustingly communal moves of the govern-ment of the day. And in the midst of this I decided to travel to the Kashmir Valley to report on the flood victims’ survival in the backdrop of the fact that a considerable majority of those rendered homeless are still squatting homeless. Yes, even after a year, even as autumn is paving the way for another harsh winter. But before I could get to hear details of the dismal realities on that front, I was (…)

Dr R.M. Pal, a well-known educationist and human rights activist, is no more. He breathed his last in Thane, where he was staying with his wife for the last several years, on October 13, 2015 at the age of 88. (He was born in Comilla in East Bengal, later East Pakistan and now Bangladesh, on July 17, 1927.)
Dr Pal, who was for sometime the Principal, Rajdhani College, University of Delhi, was the President of the People’s Union for Civil Liberty, Delhi a few years ago and also edited the (…)

by Harish Khare
These days, one can’t swing a dead cat in New Delhi without hitting a professionally wise person who can be relied upon to rapturously proclaim how Narendra Modi has “won” and “conquered” the West. But one is hard-pressed to find anyone who can explain how Nepal was “lost” on the Prime Minister’s watch. Nor will anyone be able to recall when it was last that Nepal chose to take its grievance against India to the United Nations. The correct answer: 1989.
It is the most (…)

REVIEW ARTICLE
by L.K. Sharma
Building A Just World: Essays in Honour of Muchkund Dubey edited by Manoranjan Mohanty, Vinod C. Khanna and Biswajit Dhar with a Foreword by Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Orient BlackSwan, Hyderabad; 2015; pages: 406.
This book is in honour of a Foreign Secretary who retired in 1991. Muchkund Dubey is remembered as an official who energised India’s economic diplomacy and fought the battles for development and disarmament that were considered crucial both by (…)

COMMUNICATION
The completion of 10 years of the Right to Information (RTI) is a cause for celebration. India’s RTI law has been widely recognised as one of the best legislations on this issue in the world, and millions of people have used this legislation in effective and socially relevant ways. However, this sense of achievement has been impaired to a significant extent because of increasing tendencies on the part of the government authorities, at the Central as well as State levels, to (…)