2016

It is a shame that India has not won any gold medal in the Olympics. There were great hopes from the largest ever Indian contingent but when it came to the performance, it fell well short of expectations. Hockey, which we taught to the West, is nowhere in the subcontinent. With change of rules, in the name of making the sport more attractive, the West has come to monopolise hockey. But it would be unfair to blame it on the rule changes alone. The bane of the problem with our players is lack (…)

This week marks a historic milestone in independent India’s diplomatic history. The Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) is to be signed in Washington on August 30.
The LEMOA provides for the armed forces of the two countries to use the other globally for supplies, spare parts, services and refuelling. Effectively, the US armed forces could operate out of Indian bases on a simple basis.
India has never allowed foreign powers to operate out of its military bases. It rejected (…)

by Suparna Sanyal Mukherjee
The Indian Forest and its natural phenomenon attracted people from time immemorial. The forest was a treasure, pleasure and its overwhelming beauty touched the inner sense of every individual. The potentiality of life sustenance influenced the closer acumen for shelter, having abode in its deep enclosure and fringes.
The forest dwellers, specially the tribes who are aboriginals, resided in the forest where the time-scale had no specification. The tribes are (…)

There cannot be consistency or uniformity in madness. Instances are aplenty. A British newspaper on August 2, 2016 carried a news item under the caption, “Dalit sarpanch pays Rs 10 lakh to build in her Gujarat village a temple. but is banned from entering because of her caste”. In the cornerstone of the story lies untouchability, discrimination and prejudice against the Dalits in India. A Dalit woman, Pintooben, a sarpanch of Rahemalpur on the outskirts of the State capital Ahmedabad, has (…)

by Suranjita Ray
On August 15, 2016 we celebrated our 70th Independence Day. The least one does is to recollect the great sacrifices of our freedom fighters for the country and for us to see this day. Such celebrations remind us of what independence gave us. For the ruling party it becomes an opportunity to take pride in listing what its political regime has achieved during its tenure in one of the largest democracies of the world. While the anti-colonial struggles widened the inner (…)

There is a new generation of Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley who have little or no personal acquaintance with Pandits. To most of them, stories of syncretic living in schools, colleges, work-places, eateries, sports arenas, cultural festivals, weddings and cremations are largely imbibed as hearsay. Their most acute experiences are embedded in three decades of militancy, and state repression. Most of them believe that the state’s accession to India was both coerced and illegal, and, in (…)

When I was born I was not a child I was a dream, a dream of revolt that my mother, oppressed for thousands of years, dreamt. Still it is untouched in my eyes Covered with wrinkles of thousand years, her face her eyes, two lakes overflowing with tears have watered my body..... —Sahil Parmar1
Well-known Gujarati poet Sahil Parmar’s poem ‘When I Was Born’ perhaps reverberates these days in Gujarat when we are witnessing a Dalit upsurge—the first of its kind at least in that region’s history. (…)

by Nazimuddin Siddique
In the recently concluded Assembly elections of Assam, the heterogeneous society of the North-Eastern State has accorded majority mandate to the Bharatiya Janata Party (henceforth the BJP), a party which essentially promotes religious homogeneity over social heterogeneity.
The elections have remained significant on multiple fronts. Firstly, the elections were essentially contested on the premise of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ or ‘self’ versus ‘other’. Secondly, the mandate (…)

A Dalit Asmita Yatra was taken out in Gujarat between July 31 and August 15, 2016 by the Una Dalit Atyachar Ladat Samiti from Ahmedabad to Una, where the obnoxious incident took place on July 8 when some Dalits were beaten up for skinning dead cows. Symbolically, on Indepen-dence Day the Dalits demanded that they must be freed from the task of disposal of cattle carcasses and instead they should be given land so that they may survive by engaging in agriculture, a more respectable vocation (…)

I recently wrote the following letter to newspapers:
“It is deceitful to describe pellet guns as ‘non-lethal’. While they may not kill, they have maimed people permanently, specially by causing loss of vision. Breaking up a public gathering by blinding those in it is inhuman. Tear gas is at least as effective and does no long term damage.”
An English friend reacted thus: “I find it outrageous that the situation in India has deteriorated to the point at which you are advocating the use of (…)