2016

EDITORIAL
Narendra Modi can justifiably claim to be one of the most articulate Indian PMs in recent times. Not just India but also the world at large has been witness to his oratorical skills since he has used his term in power to undertake major foreign visits, especially to the US. Yet he has been highly reticent to address press conferences in India, unlike his predecessors in the PM’s seat, notably Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
So it was a pleasant surprise to find him giving a (…)

by L.K. Sharma
“Britain has changed.” One kept hearing this lament in London even during the run-up to the historic referendum on Europe. Change can be seen and heard. The armed police presence is no longer a rare sight. Warnings about suspicious objects are heard at underground and railway stations. Many trains get cancelled or delayed. The passengers speak in several tongues and do it loudly. The Englishmen don’t read The Times any more. They tap their smart phones and laptops and (…)

by Kavaljit Singh
Britain has voted to leave the European Union. In a referendum held on Thursday (June 23), close to 52 per cent of Britons favoured leaving the EU. The referendum results reveal that the arguments put forward by Brexiters found greater resonance with the sentiments of the ordinary people than the ones put forward by the pro-European camps, the establishment and world leaders.
Before the polls closed, the UK’s political establishment was expecting that voters would (…)

by Mridula Mukherjee
The Modi Government loves mythology. And not only as a substitute for history. But as a substitute for reality. And this for good reason. The reality that has unfolded in the last two years is so far removed from the dreamland or ‘Achhe Din’ promised in the longest election campaign in Indian history, that myth-making is the only choice left for the dream merchants of the Sangh.
One-third of India is in the grip of severe drought, with many areas suffering for the (…)

Shankar Guha Niyogi, the legendary leader of workers in Chhattisgarh, was brutally murdered by the hired goons of industrialists in 1991. He started his political journey in the official Communist Parties in India and went beyond the frame of their politics. He was impressed by the Naxalbari peasant uprising, but severed his connection with the CPI (ML) as it decided to give farewell to mass organisations like trade unions.
Niyogi’s notion of trade unions was com-pletely different from (…)

With all due respect to the Gujarat High Court, I beg to differ with its judgment that the firing by Ehsan Jafri provoked the mob to kill him. I knew him and he was a staunch Congressman. The Gulbarg Society massacre was the doing of local Gujarati leaders hoping to parochialise the people.
When Jafri was surrounded by the Hindu mob, he rang me up, seeking my help to rescue him from the frenzied crowd he had around him. I rang up the Home Ministry in Delhi and told them about the telephone (…)

Following the verdict in the Gulbarg Housing Society massacre, a television channel flashed as breaking news almost the whole day the Special Court’s observation imputing blame on the riot victim, former parliamentarian Ehsan Jafri that ‘his firing was the catalyst, infuriated the mob’.1 The communal violence claimed 69 lives including the former lawmaker himself. The case has captured the public domain for a long period. The riotous mob, said the Court, was not “really interested in causing (…)

In dealing with neighbours, much of the energy of the leaders of South Asia is spent on responding to ceasefire violations on the borders. Each of these countries has become enemies of the other. There is rhetoric of hate, insecurity, control and domination in the public statements of all leaders of the neighbourhood as they respond to these violations. The daily news about new accumulation of increasing numbers of nuclear weapons and satellite launches as a part of competitive security (…)

International Yoga Day
Is the time when you had
Better take your rebellious
Mind away from the price
Of tomatoes and sundry other
Woes that afflict the
Preponderant millions.
Where policy fails it is Yoga
That will blaze the trails
To conquest of hunger and
Destitution, bringing world
Leaders to accord accolades
In profusion. When sense
Threatens, recourse must be
To collective Pretence. If the
Standing rows of national discipline
Served the Stalinists and the (…)

by S.N. Sahu
This article could not be used before June 21, the International Yoga Day. But it is being published now as its contents retain their validity.
Twentyfirst June has been declared as the International Day of Yoga at the initiative of our Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. More than a decade back, in pursuance of Shrimati Sonia Gandhi’s initiative October 2, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, was declared as the Inter-national Day of Non-Violence. One of the foundational pillars (…)