2015

From N.C.’s Writings
Against the backdrop of PM Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to Israel, the following piece by N.C. that appeared under the ‘New Delhi Skyline’ in Mainstream more than 48 years ago is being reproduced.
The military convulsion that rocked West Asia last week has left its indelible mark in New Delhi. There is no section of opinion in the Capital which has been left unaffected by this almost overpowering experience.
A significant feature of New Delhi, reactions is (…)

India’s major political parties, the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have rendered Parliament to a place of tamasha. They pick up a small matter, hardly worth a mention, and stretch it to a point of debate in Parliament. True, they attract the nation’s attention but are making people more and more cynical about the highest elected bodies.
Take the cases relating to the issuing of travel documents to Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a hard-line separatist leader from Jammu and Kashmir, and (…)

MUSINGS
Today’s political rulers are killing. Spreading their tactics beyond Gujarat... the ongoing killings in Madhya Pradesh are nothing short of silencing witnesses and whistle-blowers. Anyone who could speak out and pinpoint at the political figures involved in the Vyapam scam, is not allowed to survive. And these murders carry a definite pattern, yet mute we sit.
Another politically mastered trend which has been emerging right from the Muzaffarnagar riots is this—political goons (…)

by Naresh Nadeem
The paper presented here, an impressionistic account, deals with the TV entertainment media in India, its course of development, its characteristics, and its implications and lessons for Pakistan. The paper seeks to situate the issue in the context of the development of the TV entertainment media that has registered a phenomenal growth in the last three decades and more so after the entry of private players in the 1990s. Three years ago, the present writer had presented (…)

by Madan Yadav
Introduction
Geopolitical and geo-economic factors, strategic counter-balance against China in Central Asia and South-East Asia are the new dynamic approach of Indian diplomacy with Mongolia in international relations. The recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has changed the discourse of bilateral relations with Mongolia. He is the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Mongolia. India and Mongolia are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the forging of their (…)

Last March, the Government of Goa completed three years of its rule. Yet, the assurances given at the time of the Assembly elections remain unfulfilled to this day. The ruling party had promised special status for Goa under Article 371 of the Constitution. The special status was sought on two grounds. As a result of large scale purchase of land by persons from outside this territory, the average Goan cannot afford a house or land in Goa. Furthermore, there is large scale migration into the (…)

book review
Charting A New Path: Early Years of National Federation of Indian Women by Gargi Chakravartty and Supriya Chotani; People’s Publishing House, New Delhi; 2014; pages: i to xix and 360; Rs 300 (PB), Rs 450 (HB).
When I read excerpts of Geeta Mukherjee’s speeches in Parliament in Charting A New Path: Early Years Of National Federation of Indian Women by Gargi Chakravartty and Supriya Chotani,it immediately recalled a spry compact woman with her hair tied severely in a bun and (…)

by Subhankar Gupta
Prof Sathamangalam Ranga Iyengar Srinivasa Varadhan, the greatest living Indian Amerian mathematician and recipient of the Abel prize, considered as the Nobel Prize in Mathematics, awarded from Oslo, has joined the near-5000 signatories demanding a probe against dismissal of the Director, Indian Statistical Institute, Prof Bimal Roy, by the ISI Chairman, Dr Arun Shourie. Varadhan, who is one of the youngest recipients of the Abel Prize (even before the Nobel Laureate in (…)

Call upon the Government of India to Review Decision on Sardar Sarovar Project and Expedite Rehabilitation as per Law and Judicial Orders
That the struggle of the people in the Narmada valley is symbolic of the struggle of millions of common people across the country and is a united fight to sustain peace, justice and democracy in these trying times, was the conclusion that emerged out of a day-long Convention on the eve of 30 years of relentless struggle by the Narmada Bachao Andolan in (…)

Professor Kancha Ilaiah is the Director of the Centre for Social Exclusion in the Maulana Azad University in Hyderabad. All through his life as an academician, he has ignited minds by raising important questions on culture, caste and spirituality. The police have now booked a case on him for an article he wrote in Andhra Jyothi, a Telugu newspaper, on whether God is a democrat or not, on the complaint by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad that the article has hurt their religious sentiments. Is it (…)