2015

As we go to press, we have received the sad news that independent Left activist-intellectual and noted journalist Praful Bidwai, 66, has suddenly passed away on June 23 in Amsterdam where he had gone for the Transnational Institute Fellows’ Meeting (he was a Fellow there).
For sometime in the recent past he was working on a project on the Indian Left at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. The work has been completed and the book is due soon.
He worked in The Times of India for (…)

by Nabanipa Bhattacharjee
Thousands of people forced their way into the Dimapur Central Jail—Dimapur is a fairly large, commercial town in Nagaland—on March 5, 2015 to get hold of one Syed Sarifuddin Khan, a Bangla-speaking Muslim man in his mid-thirties, in order to punish him for the alleged rape of a Naga woman. In complete disregard of the jail authority, the mob then dragged the man through the streets of the town and beat him to death. The dead Khan, then, was hung on a tower for (…)

EDITORIAL
Corruption has now raised its ugly head in the present ruling party as details of the close connections of that celebrated fugitive evading questioning by the Enforcement Directorate, Lalit Modi, with a senior member in the Narendra Modi Cabinet, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, and a noted Chief Minister, Vasundhara Raje, of BJP-ruled Rajasthan have come out in the open. And this has happened shortly after the Modi Government completed its one-year rule proudly claiming (…)

The following is the letter from the CPI-M General Secretary to the Mainstream editor (June 15, 2015):
Dear Mr Sumit Chakravartty,
As the Editor of Mainstream Weekly, you had published an Editorial “Left Perspective Today” in Volume LIII (53), No. 20 on 09.05.2015 and which continues to be available at http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article5668.html. The Editorial contains an assertion which is false, baseless and malicious and is intended to defame the CPI-M as a political party in the (…)

DOCUMENT
Executive summary
The following is the Executive Summary of the Report on One year of the Modi Regime, edited by John Dayal and Shabnam Hashmi. The report was released by Harsh Mander, John Dayal, Apoorvanand, Vidya Bhushan Rawat and Shabnam Hashmi at the Indian Women’s Press Corps, New Delhi on June 18, 2015. The link to the full document—“365 Days Democracy and Secularism Under The Modi Regime—A Report” [PDF]—
[See full report here: https://tinyurl.com/olj2o4x]
On May 26, (…)

States have a primary duty to raise the standard of nutrition levels in the public, improve standards of living and prohibit that which is harmful to health. Food is one of life’s basic necessities. Food laws are enacted by states to protect the consumer with reference to food quality and safety. The UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection 1985 provides a framework for all countries.
With globalisation and commercialisation international trade has increased. In this background food quality (…)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka was mistimed. It looked as if he had gone to shore up the sagging image of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He has only heightened the anti-India feeling graph. New Delhi is not seen neutral.
I do not know why and for how long have we to support the authoritarian rule by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh. True, she is the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who liberated East Pakistan from the distant and oppressive West Pakistan. But that (…)

However mighty the quake may be,
I survive smartly in a Delhi high-rise,
But such is the bias of the Committee,
I do not get the Nobel Prize.
I drive in a mid-day blistering sun
Through desert sands where everything dies,
But the Committee takes little note,
And refuses me the Nobel Prize.
I eat Maggi loaded with Lead,
And counter anti- Corporate lies,
But the Word Bank will not recommend
Me for that coveted Nobel Prize.
One reason for such unfairness—
I belong to a poor (…)

IMPRESSIONS
The wise keep their own counsel, the foolish boast. Did we forget this timeless principle in our very moment of triumph? India’s commando operation against insurgent groups in Myanmar was skilful in planning and brilliant in execution. It was also unambiguous in the messages it conveyed—that attacks on our soldiers would not go unpunished, that insurgents who thought they were in safe havens because they were outside the border would have to think again. To the extent that (…)

by Bharat Bhushan
Contrary to popular expectation, the attacks on Indian security forces in Manipur and Nagaland are unlikely to come down.
The cross-border Indian military action in Myanmar may indeed have been a strong message to the North-Eastern insurgent groups sheltering there. However, there is every likelihood that their attacks on the security forces will become more frequent in the coming days and expand into new areas.
’Revenge’ for attacks on their camps in Myanmar may only (…)