2015

by M.R. Biju
The power to take property from the indivi-dual is rooted in the idea of eminent domain. The doctrine of eminent domain states that the sovereign can do anything if the act of the sovereign involves public interest. The doctrine empowers the sovereign to acquire private land for public use, provided the public nature of the usage can be demonstrated beyond doubt. The doctrine is based on the following two Latin maxims: (1) Salus populi suprema lex (Welfare of the People Is the (…)

by Aijaz Ashraf Wani and Farooq Ahmad Waza
This article reached us quite sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.
While hundred days is surely too brief a period to judge any government, it does, however, provide an insight into the willingness and capabilities of a government as well as the direction that it is taking. And when the government is a coalition and that too made up of parties like the BJP and PDP with diametrically opposite ideoglogies and (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
We reproduce N.C.’s following article on the 73rd anniversary of the ‘Quit India’ struggle.
This was the week, fiftytwo years ago, that marked the parting of ways between the Communists and the Congress. It was the Communist opposition to the ‘Quit India’ resolution at the historic AICC session in August 1942 that ultimately led to the expulsion of the Communists from the Congress organisations in 1946. Incidentally, the eviction of the Communists from the Congress (…)

by Fahad Hashmi
‘The masses have never thirsted after truth...Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.’ —Gustave Le Bon in The Crowd
In what might be called a classic case of political naivety, the Student Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami of India, recently organised an international seminar on ‘communal harmony’ and ‘nation-building’ in collaboration with (…)

The people of Goa can be justifiably proud of the progress achieved over the last five decades in core sectors such as education. The literacy rate in Goa was about 30 per centat the time of liberation. It is now hundred per centif we exclude some persons above the age of 50 years. In 1961, in my own village there was just one primary school with about hundred students. The village has now been subdivided into three panchayats and has several primary schools and high schools with thousands (…)

by Basudev Ganguly
Ultimately the bipartite talks between the IBA and bank unions are over and the tenth bipartite settlement has been arrived at. Many questions and issues have cropped up in the meantime.
a) Are the bipartite settlements being carried forward with the purpose of achieving signifi-cant achievements towards improving service conditions, enhancing wages and super-annuation benefits?
b) It is the unions’ mental bankruptcy to accept a new vertical of 7.75 per cent as (…)

The sparkling success of two underprivileged brothers, Raju and Brijesh Saroj, of village Rehua Lalganj, district Pratapgarh of Uttar Pradesh in the highly competitive IIT entrance test have earned loud appreciations from home and abroad. Raju secured the 167th and Brijesh the 410th rank in the merit list. Dharamraj, a mill-hand in Surat, Gujarat, earns a monthly sum of Rs 12,000 for a family of seven persons. Knowing their father’s inability to finance their expensive engineering education (…)

REVIEW ARTICLE
by Nirupam Sen
“Europe in Question — and what to do about it” by Stuart Holland; published by Spokesman, UK; 2015; 301 pages; price: GBP 15.
At present, Stuart Holland teaches economics in Portugal and Hungary. What distinguishes Stuart Holland from most economists is that he is both a brilliant theorist and has been a brilliant practitioner, both in the UK and in Europe. For long he was a Labour MP and the Shadow Minister for International Development in the British (…)

by Bharat Bhushan
The historic peace accord with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), signed on August 3, 2015, has been a long time coming.
It was expected that the agreement would be announced in a few months’ time. What seems to have hastened it is the indisposition of the chairman of the NSCN (IM), Isak Chishi Swu. He is in a hospital in the Capital, reportedly with multiple organ failure. He is supposed to have signed the agreement while in a wheelchair. (…)

TRIBUTE
Dr N.P. Gupta, a doctor by profession, passed away on July 30, 2015 at the age of 93 years. He had retired three decades back as the Deputy Director General, ICMR.
I knew him in my early days as a contemporary of my father, Late Prof Asha Ram. They were together with friends like P.C. Joshi, Sulekh Chandra Gupta, and R.K. Garg (a student of my father in Allahabad University). They were all Communists to begin with but remained Marxists till the end even if disillusioned with the (…)