2015

The Preamble to the Constitution says that India is a ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic`. The Preamble is part of the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution, which—as the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment in the Keshavananda Bharati case ordained—cannot be altered. It conceptualised the ‘basic structure doctrine’ and recognised the inherent power of the judiciary to review and, if necessary, strike down any amendment to the Constitution enacted by Parliament which seeks to (…)

The senior journalist and raconteur A.J. Philip once bitingly wrote: “The population of Christians in the colony I and my wife lived in during our stay in Bhopal jumped up by 50 per cent when our first son was born.” They were, till then, the only Christians in the residential complex in the capital of Madhya Pradesh. That, in a nutshell, is what is meant by facts, statistics and lies.
So there was nothing surprising at the response of the media when the government in a cryptic press note (…)

Haryana Chief Minister Khattar has come out with most undemocratic and unconsti-tutional legislation—changes in the Haryana Panchayat Act, namely, that the candidates keen on contesting the forthcoming gram panchayat, panchayat samiti and zila parishad elections in Haryana will now have to produce their Class X certificates while women and SCs will need a Class VIII certificate to be eligible to contest.
In unashamed defence of this most undemocratic step, the government is putting forth (…)

by Purusottam Bhattacharya
Europe has been in the news of late-for the wrong reasons. The continent is afflicted with the constant threat of terrorist attacks some of which were witnessed in the recent past. The sovereign debt crisis, particularly involving Greece, has been continuing unabated though a temporary solution has recently been found. However the headline grabbing problem which has deprived many of the leaders of the European Union of their sleep is the massive influx of (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by Ranbir Singh
India’s 2014 Elections, A Modi-led BJP Sweep by Paul Wallace (ed.); Sage Publications, New Delhi; 2015; pages xxiv + 427; Price: Rs 1250.
This book is a continuation of the earlier election studies, Indian Politics and the 1998 Elections: Regionalization, Hindutava and State Politics (1999); India’s 1999 Elections and the 20th Century Politics (2003), India’s 2004 Elections: Grassroots and National Perspectives (2007) and India: 2009 Elections Coalition (…)

by Mahi Pal Singh
Within 15 months of coming to power at the Centre, the Narendra Modi Government has amply shown its true colours. If we compare what Narendra Modi, the Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP, and the party’s President Amit Shah, had promised to the voters with what the government has done so far, the wide difference between the promises and implementation comes out clearly. Modi had made a tall claim to bring back black money stashed in foreign accounts and put in every (…)

WOMEN’S WORLD
by Sreerupa Saha
Introduction: Note on Movement and Gender
Movements are not themselves actors, move-ments are something that people create to press for social change. They are spaces that are made by people to allow relationships between them that can challenge power. Social movements are generally seen as phenomena of the modern era and industrialised society, whether located in the “First” world or not. Industrialisation and urbanisation, technological advancements, (…)

IMPRESSIONS
It has the appearance of a planned conspiracy. A party gets power, indulges in abominable corruption and misdeeds and is then thrown out by disgusted voters. But the next party that comes to power proves just as abominable, so voters throw it out, letting the earlier party come back to power. Thus voters end up as fools while all parties get a chance to plunder the country by turn.
Indira Gandhi’s Emergency atrocities angered the people so much that they did the unthinkable: (…)

by Navneet Sharma and Pradeep Nair
“If Hindu raj does become a fact, it will, no doubt, be the greatest calamity for this country. No matter what the Hindus say, Hinduism is a menace to liberty, equality and frater-nity.......” —B.R. Ambedkar
The mighty Hindu cultural organisation’s attempt to label Ambedkar as a ‘Hindu’ reformist gets disbanded even by a faint understanding of Ambedkar. A better comprehension of Ambedkarism challenges the prognosis of Hindutva, Hindudom and the Akhand (…)

MUSINGS
No, I can’t get over the picture of the little Syrian boy, three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, lying dead by the sea-shore. Each time I look at it, tears continue trickling and a huge sense of helplessness-cum-sorrow overtakes...The innocence of a helpless fleeing refugee child, compounded by the pain of his father and that of the thousands of fleeing refugees ...fleeing into a nowhere of sorts. No country wants to accept these refugees. European political heads and tails coming in way, (…)