2015

by L.K. Sharma
Move over Bollywod! Move over Hollywood! Modiwood rules the world! Prime Minister Modi’s London show on November 13, 2015 will be recorded as a landmark event in the history of the Anglo-Indian encounter.
Imagine Prime Minister Narendra Modi landing on the stage of the Wembley Stadium in the Pushpak Viman, the flying machine invented in India.The crowds turn hysterical seeing their God descend in an aeroplane that was copied by the Western scientists without royalty (…)

At a meeting with the President of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at his residence in New Delhi on November 6, the functionaries of the Hindu nationalist organi-sation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which mentors the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reportedly expressed “grave concern” over the mishandling of the country’s relations with Nepal.
The RSS functionaries censured the govern-ment for the current India-Nepal standoff, blaming the leadership for (…)

How the mighty have fallen fits in completely with the rout of the BJP in the recently held elections to the Bihar Assembly! To any analyst it looked that it was going to be a close fight —it is no hidden secret that progressive forces in the country like academics, writers and social activists, who were passive at the start, were forced to be active as the real face of the BJP through its boss, the RSS, emerged threatening the very core values guaranteed by Indian Constitution, and thus (…)

Whether or not the Narendra Modi magic has waned or whether the strategy of campai-gning had been faulty, the fact remains that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been routed in Bihar. The BJP is putting up a brave front and feels its loss is because of the Opposition unity.
The Bihar Assembly election results have, nevertheless, delivered a body blow to the BJP, more specifically to the Prime Minister-party President duo of Modi and Amit Shah. The blame-game that began within a couple (…)

Historical Background of Bihar
Historically, Gautam Buddha was born in Bihar (in Lumbini, now in Nepal). The famous Indian thinker, Chanakya, was from Bihar and so was Aryabhatt. Between the 5th and 7th centuries, many eminent Chinese Buddhist scholars—such as Fa Xian, Xuanzang and Yi Jing—visited India and studied at the Nalanda University (in Bihar). During the Mughal empire, handicrafts, agriculture and architecture of Bihar prospered considerably and Sanskrit remained as popular as (…)

by Arun Srivastava
The BJP-led NDA, which was riding high on the Narendra Modi wave, eventually lost to the mahagathbandhan in the Bihar elections. After being severely mauled in the Delhi elections with the BJP winning just three seats in the 70-member Assembly, the loss in Bihar has completely eroded the political credibility of Modi. Till a week back Modi was visualised as invincible. But now he is not even treated as one among equals.
For creation of this situation no one but Modi (…)

by Sri Ram Pandeya
With the advent of modernity, the Middle Ages were characterised as dark ages as the Church had assumed power at that time (in the Middle Ages) and it produced knowledge as a consequence of that—further it could be said to have monopolised knowledge in the sense of prohibiting any other claims on it as power had become the precondition for knowledge, leading to knowledge becoming a closely guarded secret as it could not have passed the test of verification.
On the (…)

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had been the Prime Minister of India from 1947 to 1964. He made an important contribution to the building of modern India during his prime ministership. In 1956 Nehru was considered the most arresting figure in the world political stage since the end of the Churchill, Stalin and Rosevelt era.1 Although he played an important role in the independence struggle, yet his contributions are related to solving many deep-rooted issues, political challenges and socio-economic (…)

by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
Nehru, the architect of modern India, was a staunch nationalist for whom communalism was the worst socio-political evil. He fought his whole life against it. His views about communalism were shaped in his upbringing which was absolutely secular; the other reasons lay on his ideas about religion and composite culture. In his childhood he had come across people from different religions. His teacher, F.T. Brooks, his father’s munshi Mubarak Ali, his brief interaction (…)

MUSINGS
When news came in of the passing away of the Jammu-based veteran journalist, Ved Bhasin, my first spontaneous reaction was—we have lost a brave man, who spoke and wrote so very fearlessly ... He wrote with conviction and passion.
Though this soft-spoken man looked mild and had a certain serenity spread on his face but he didn’t mince words, nor dilute details to the horrific human rights violations in the Kashmir region. I’d met him about five times and each time I was amazed to (…)