2015

Tribute
Praful Bidwai is no more. He died in Amsterdam on Tuesday evening (June 23, 2015) due to a cardiac arrest,
With his death we have lost the ‘best Left-wing journalist’ in this part of South Asia whose articles appeared in many newspapers and magazines in the subcontinent and in the Middle East and was frequently published by The Guardian,Le Monde Diplomatique as well.
Praful will be missed by thousands and thousands of his readers (this pen-pusher included) who were ‘groomed’ by (…)

Four articles by Praful Bidwai from 2014 - 2015

IMPRESSIONS
We can sing hallelujahs for democracy all our lives, but democracy will remain a system where some people are more equal than others. We don’t have to look at the magical life of Lalit Modi to see this reality. Look at Pappu Yadav.
On a flight from Patna to Delhi, he refused to switch off his mobile phone, refused to put his seat upright for landing, threw food in the aisle and threatened the cabin crew with his chappal. Can any of us get away with such behaviour? Pappu Yadav (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
When we were young, our school-books said: “The sun never sets on the British Empire”—that meant whichever way you turned the globe, a piece of British Empire could be seen on the map. This week, in an extravaganza resembling a Hollywood premiere, the exit of the British Empire from the last piece of territory outside Britain was shown on the sovereignty of Hong Kong having been resumed to the People’s Republic of China as the Prince of Wales with his faithful (…)

I am sorry to revert to the Emergency yet again, over two successive weeks. R.K. Dhawan, Mrs Indira Gandhi’s confidante, has disclosed that Sonia Gandhi had no qualms about the Emergency. This is contrary to what I had heard when the Emergency was imposed. It was reported that both her husband, Rajiv Gandhi, and she were thinking to return to Italy to bring up their children in a “free atmosphere”.
Dhawan’s observation about Sonia Gandhi makes all the more obligatory for her to explain her (…)

by Syed Badrul Ahsan
The first time I heard of Kuldip Nayar was in the early 1970s. His slim work, Distant Neighbours: A Tale of the Subcontinent, had just been published in India. It was the theme of the book, Nayar’s interviews of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on their meeting soon after Pakistan’s military defeat in Bangladesh and the Bengali leader’s release from solitary confinement in Mianwali to house arrest near Islamabad, which aroused my interest in (…)

by Navneet Sharma, Pradeep Nair and HarikrishNan B.
“Ye, who by race, by blood, by culture, by nationality possess almost all the essentials of Hindutva and had been forcibly snatched out of our ancestral home by the hand of violence—ye, have only to render wholehearted love to our common mother and recognise her not only as Fatherland (Pitrabhu) but even as a Holyland (Punyabhu): and ye would be most welcome to the Hindu fold.” From Essentials of Hindutva by Savarkar)
The above (…)

The following are a few excerpts from Sagari Chhabra’s recently released book, In Search of Freedom: Journeys Through India and South-East Asia (Harper-Collins Publishers India).
Interview of Subhadra Joshi, New Delhi, 1998
‘And tell me about your work during the communal riots?’
‘During the riots we brought out an appeal that looted things should be returned. We wrote it by hand, saying that whatever happened in the labour area was distressing. To our surprise whatever was stolen was (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by Amrita Bhalla
In Search of Freedom: Journeys Through India and South-East Asia by Sagari Chhabra; Harper Collins Publishers India; 2015; pages; (i to x) + 344; Rs 499.
“We were always there,... But you discovered us.”
“If it wasn’t for you, Gouridi, my generation and I wouldn’t be walking in a free India!” I responded with a deep sense of gratitude and humility as I acknowledged the privileges of being born free.
Sagari Chhabra’s In Search of Freedom: Journeys (…)

COMMUNICATION
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s contention—that the help that she gave to Lalit Modi to go to Portugal to sign the consent papers of his ailing wife was on humanitarian grounds—does not in any way exonerate her from committing a serious crime of helping a notorious fugitive criminal who is not involved only in cricketing-betting, match-fixing, rigging and money-laundering but in a number of cases. By requesting the Indian origin Labour MP, Keith Vaz, and the British (…)