2016

The PMO has stated that the Indian economy is now the most open since FDI inflow has been liberalised further and restrictions in certain sectors have been reduced. The Opposition has linked the move to Dr Rajan’s announcement that he would not seek a second term as the RBI Governor. It is not that he has resigned. They argue that anticipating negative reaction in the markets, the government had to announce concessions to counter it. The two items of news are certainly connected as signals (…)

On April 29, 2016, India’s Income Tax Department released tax statistics after a gap of almost 16 years. Till 2000, the Tax Department used to publish All India Income Tax Statistics but the publication was discontinued for some unknown reason. No explanations were given by the authorities for the discontinuation of this publication despite numerous demands made for its release by Indian economists and researchers.
According to media reports, the government released this data after French (…)

BOOK REVIEW
‘INDIA NEEDS GANDHI MORE DESPERATELY NOW THAN EVER’
by Aejaz Ahmad Wani
Hindutva or Hind Swaraj by U.R. Ananthamurthy (translated from Kannada by Keerti Ramachandra and Vivek Shanbhag); Harper Perennial, Harper Collins; 2016; pages: 120+ xxii (foreward); Price: Rs 350 (Hardcover).
Introduction
In the wake of a recurrent rallying cry of Hindutva in the country, U.R. Ananthamurthy’s Hindutva or Hindu Swaraj is a chef-d’oeuvre that purports to light up the inherent (…)

by Meghna Kajla
Citizenship in France and Debate on group Rights
The term used citizenship/rights will be interchangeable for both.
As T.H. Marshall explicates, citizenship is evolving and it’s a combination of three rights: civil, political and social. It is the combination of these three rights that makes citizenship. How does France define citizenship? The Republican French model of citizenship is based on the mixture of jus sanguinis and jus soli. (Steiner N., 2009) The country has (…)

India and its politicians must introspect as to why there has been such a mass outpouring of grief and support for Burhan Wani, a militant who was killed in an ‘encounter’. Already news reports confirm that over 30 unarmed protestors have been killed by the police and scores more have been injured. The death-toll itself indicates and reports confirm that the lethal force used by the security forces were absolutely dispropor-tionate. Some reports suggest that even hospitals and ambulances are (…)

EDITORIAL
The terror attack on a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone of Gulshan late on July 1 has caused consternation not just in Bangladesh but South Asia as a whole and neighbouring India in particular. It resulted in the death of 28 persons, including six gunmen, who had stormed into the Holey Artisan Restaurant to hold all those present there as hostage. Those killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, one American, a 19-year-old Indian student and two Bangladeshis (one (…)

by Binish Maryam
Ethnic violence leaves in its wake devastation on the one hand and deep psychological trauma on the other. The suffering of the victims becomes part of the collective psyche of the society. The strategies that the Indian state generally adopts to build peace in the post-violence scenario are not well equipped to take care of the antagonisms, grievances and pain that constitute the collective consciousness of the conflicting communities. Often monetary compensation and (…)

When l was studying in a journalism school abroad, l was told by my professor that a news story should be like a skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be attractive. Over the years, the story has assumed the shape of pontification and inevitably padded.
When senior journalists are kicking the bucket, the question that stares at us is: what kind of journalism will be there in future? Of course this is not confined to India. All countries, whether in the West or the (…)

TRIBUTE
In the death of Inder Malhotra, India has lost its most outstanding chronicler.
As a young man of 17, Inder Malhotra was there somewhere in the multitudes of people who went up Raisina Hill to watch the birth of free India at the stroke of midnight of August 14-15, 1947.
From then, the careers of both India as a free nation and Inder as an aspiring journalist ran parallel to each other—until Saturday (June 11) when he breathed his last.
Over nearly 70 years, Inder watched (…)

TRIBUTE
Krishan Kumar Katyal, who died in New Delhi on Wednesday (June 8) at 88, was a distinguished political reporter who had a nose for news, persistence in following up on tips and a talent for cultivating sources in political parties as well as several wings of the government. In the world of journalism, he was universally known by his initials and took jokes on KKK, matching the infamous Ku Klux Klan in America, in his stride.
We were colleagues on the political reporting team of (…)