2016

From N.C.’s Writings
Pressure Counter Pressure
Behind the angry protests and almost interminable complaints of Cease Fire violations, there is a feeling in New Delhi about the overall situation with regard to Pakistan which, though not vocal, is significant.
It is geneally conceded here that a full-scale war between India and Pakistan is practically ruled out for the present. The theory that the cessation of hostilities provided by the Security Council Resolution is being utilised as a (…)

Is this now a paradise lost To an ancient contention? A clanging of frozen wills Where all is lost and nothing won? Relentless crones in safe enclaves Send nubile angels to war Against an uncaring distant state That seems light years a far. Spots of blood on haunted streets Invite the lurking vulture; Windows barred in dread and shame Protect a beleaguered culture. Faces pelleted with holes Are stoic in hopeless time; Flesh and bone come apart But spirits scream a defiant (…)

Can the Congress Party be retrieved? This was the question posed to me. Another one is: whether or not the party is relevant. Answering the last question first, I said that a 150-year-old organisation, which has loyal members even in the remotest rural areas, cannot be irrelevant. The Congress led the independence movement and has ruled the country for more than five decades. For my generation, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel, who were the top two leaders of the Congress, are icons and I (…)

Prime Minister Modi’s bringing up “Balochistan” during his August 15 address was criticised, especially since he omitted to mention the ongoing, acute crisis in Kashmir. While the validity of the criticism of omission may hold good, mentioning Balochistan could be a calculated move to reverse India’s traditional passivity against Pakistan’s aggressive India policy. India’s turning a spotlight on Balochistan has the possible disadvantage of Pakistan telling the international community that it (…)

This year is the birth centenary year of Benoy Ghosh, who is a pioneer in writing and documenting the social and cultural history of Bengal. He got attracted to Marxism in his student days. After his graduation in 1937, he started working as a journalist, and worked in some of the leading Bengali dailies and periodicals of the time. After moving away from the CPI in 1948, as many other intellectuals did, he did his Masters in Ancient Indian History and Culture, and established himself as a (…)

The Eighth Summit meeting of BRICS will be held in Goa on October 15 and 16. The heads of state and government of the five member-countries will participate in the meeting. India has also invited the heads of state and government of BIMSTEC for an outreach meeting during the Summit. BIMSTEC is a regional group that brings together Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand as well as Nepal and Bhutan with the objective of technological and economic cooperation among South Asian and (…)

by Ashfaq Maqsood Ali
Immanuel Kant, the eighteenth century philosopher and an idealist, while arguing that only pure reason can lead to truth, excluded almost everything derivable from sensation and experience. For him, things do not present themselves to the mind, through senses, as they really are. Thus, relying on sensory experience alone people only know things as they seem to be — never as they actually are. Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein in their book, Plato and a Platypus, (…)

by Fayezah Iqbal
In the once serene and bewitchingly beautiful Kashmir Valley, unrest and wild turbulence has spelt unimaginable horror in the lives of the people. A colossal deal of irreversible damage and destruction to the lives, property and people’s faith in democracy and government has been unleashed ever since the imposition of AFSPA in 1990, implemented to combat insurgency in the region primarily.
For that matter AFSPA has only added fuel to fire in all the regions where it had (…)

COMMUNICATION
Imagine a farmer family leading a secure life based on its fertile fields suddenly becoming not just landless but also homeless in the span of a few hours. This has been the tragic and traumatic experience of thousands of rural families not only this year but also in most recent years. Whether it is the Malda and Murshidabad areas of Bengal or Gazipur and Bahraich districts of Uttar Pradesh or other remote areas of Bihar and Assam, the problem of river erosion has been (…)

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
The ‘surgical strikes’ by the Indian Army in the wee hours of today at seven places in the PoK where infiltrators had assembled to cross the LoC and infil-trate into India for carrying out terror attacks, was executed with commendable planning and preparation. Pakistan’s initial reaction was to downplay the impact of the strike as Islamabad was taken completely aback by the Indian action which it apparently did not anticipate. Expectedly, there is euphoria in India for (…)