2015

The following article was published precisely twentyfive years ago in the Mainstream Republic Day Special (January 27, 1990) after the Congress’ defeat in the 1989 Lok Sabha poll and created a stir in political circles. It is being reproduced in full now when the Congress is facing a much deeper crisis in the wake of its rout in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
by Congressman
The dust of the Lok Sabha election is settling down.... Well, not quite, because the Assembly elections several (…)

The French President, Francois Hollande, immediately declared that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was an act of terrorism and an assault on freedom of the press. Michael J. Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA and now a consultant to CBS News and topmost national security professional, stated categorically:
This is the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the attacks in London in July of 2005. The motive here is absolutely clear: trying to shut down a media organisation that (…)

about the January 2015 terror attack on the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and its gross misinterpretation by people of Left liberal sensibilities in India and much of the world.

Even after consuming reams and reams of paper, I would fail to describe Boobli George Verghese. Yet one word will suffice to portray him: Gentleman! He was a true Christian in faith and deed. He was a man of values who did his best to stay objective and humane in life as well in profession.
The first time I met George was more than 50 years ago when he was officiating as the Resident Editor of The Times of India. I was then the Information Officer at the Press Information Bureau, (…)

IMPRESSIONS
This is a piece the author, himself a reputed columnist, wrote for Mainstream remembering M.V. Kamath, the veteran journalist who passed away a few months ago last year.
At the dawn of independence Bombay was a vibrant, cosmopolitan, forward-looking universe throbbing with creativity and avant-garde enterprise. Mulk Raj Anand would saunter out of his Marg office in Army and Navy Building even as Raja Rao worked his way to Chetana, the restaurant that blazed a new trail by (…)

by Vijay Pratap
Prof Rajni Kothari, born on August 16, 1928, left this world on January 19, 2015. He was a rare academic person. In the last four decades I have witnessed many stalwarts leaving this world but not seen so many articles having been written in various languages in the mainstream media as well as in the movement space. The articles so far have primarily described him as a political scientist who, in addition to doing path-breaking work for his discipline, also contributed (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Book Discussion on ‘Inside-Outside: Two Views of Social Change in Rural India’ by Baburao Shravan Baviskar and D.W. Attwood (Discussants: A.M. Shah, Anand Chakravarti, Partha Nath Mukherji, Tulsi Patel); pages: 40; Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi
This is actually not a book but a booklet containing opinions expressed by several social scientists during an interesting discussion on the above-named book by Baburao Shravan Baviskar, an economist by training but a (…)

by Primla Loomba
The following is a tribute to Perin Chandra (née Bharucha), 96, who passed away in Mumbai on January 7, 2015, from one of her oldest associates since her days in Lahore.
I have had a long association with Perin. It goes back to the days when I was still an under-graduate student in Kinnaird College, Lahore, Perin was already a well-known Communist leader.
There is a very vague recollection I have of my first meeting with Perin. It was outside the Regal Cinema after a (…)

by Noor Zaheer
What can one write about an uncle who pampered one with hot chocolate and insisted on presenting a book on Marxism with it? What can one say about him who gets you the first proper job, the one that you love doing, and performs a detailed autopsy of all that you write, one who does not fear giving away his contacts and is convinced that Marsiakhwani is a one-man theatre, whose eyes glistened with knowledge through thick spectacles and a warm smile played on his lips as he (…)