2016

by Binoy Viswam
The people of Kerala have given their verdict. It is emphatic, unequivocal and hence, historic. They made the LDF victorious by providing it with 91 seats in the 140-member Assembly. The UDF, led by the Congress, could secure only 47 seats. The BJP, which for long was struggling to enter the Kerala Legislature, could do it by winning one seat. One seat went to an Independent.
This verdict was not at all unexpected. The voters’ mood was so clear and visible: they wanted a (…)

The times are a-steaming With heat, hate, humbug; Victors of a street fight Romp with ominous chug chug.
Money-spinners mark assent To muscle brains of the day; Celebrities do not mind being Slaves to what golden mouth may say
Of the honest and the innocent, Or the unsmartly tame; Lacking the glibness of tongue, The meek must take the blame.
Never did the devil quote Scripture so brazenly as now; The just croak in crevices, The rogues stride above.
Badri Raina

Veteran theatre personality Ebrahim Alkazi is now ninety. In this year, a number of programmes have been launched in different parts of the country to highlight the life-time achievements of this stalwart theatre director who has produced an illustrious crop of actors, directors, playwrights and practitioners of other crafts of theatre. Many of his students have become renowned film personalities as well. We reproduce here an interview of the theatre legend with Anees Chishti, conducted over (…)

COMMUNICATION
There have been several recent newspaper reports which indicate that there are strong possibilities of the revival of the agitation by several members of the Jat community. As at the time of the previous such agitation there was a lot of violence and arson and the peace of a huge area was disrupted for a long time, there are apprehensions among the people regarding their safety as well as prevalence of law and order. While the government of course has to initiate the (…)

EDITORIAL
The BJP-led NDA Government has completed two years today. As it observes its second anniversary, one is reminded of what happened in 1979. That was the time when the first anti-Congress government at the Centre, represented by the Janata Party comprising the major non-Congress parties—the Congress-O, Jana Sangh, Socialist Party and Jagjivan Ram-H-N. Bahuguna-sponsored Congress for Democracy—and headed by the then PM, Morarji Desai, completed two years in power after having (…)

by Ram Puniyani
Introduction
Modi came to power with a bang in 2014. Riding on the support of the corporate world, the RSS combine, media blitz and sky-rocketing promises, he managed to get 31 per cent of votes and 282 seats in the Lok Sabha. This is the first time the BJP managed a simple majority in the Lower House of Parliament. This also became an occasion for Modi-BJP-RSS to unfold their agenda in full. While economic promises have floundered, the protective policies for the average (…)

TWO YEARS OF MODI RULE
by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
In several ways it is conveyed that the Modi Government has performed extraordinarily well on the foreign policy front but the dark pimples are never talked about. The fact is that Modi’s South Asian foreign policy has been under stress since the day it was crafted. There are cracks in relations with Pakistan, Maldives and a big hole has been created in Indo-Nepal ties where a huge trust deficit exists.
It began since the time of the (…)

by Sadhan Mukherjee
If you shout “Bharat Mata ki Jai”, you are a patriot. If you don’t for some reason, you are not only not a patriot but anti-national as well. That is the latest funda of varied Hindutva fanatics among whom are those occupying key positions in both the governments at the Centre and elsewhere including the BJP party hierarchy. An era of ‘nationalism-test’ has begun.
Hitler used nationalism to evoke patriotism in Germans and bolster his Nazi party. The current war-cry of (…)

The judgement from the Allahabad High Court on April 23, 2016, quashing my termination order from the Indian Institute of Technology at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi has come as a big relief for me because it essentially is a vindication of my thought and action. Moreover, without taking the name of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or the majoritarian Hindutva ideology and the Vice Chancellor, Professor Girish Chandra Tripathi, it has spared no words in their criticism.
The judgement (…)

May 27 this year marked Jawaharlal Nehru’s fiftysecond death anniversary. On this occasion we are reproducing the following excerpts from the speeches and writings of Nehru that are of exceptional relevance today.
I have long been of opinion that the Hindu Mahasabha is a small reactionary group pretending to speak on behalf of the Hindus of India of whom it is very far from being representative. None the less misapprehensions have been created by their high-sounding titles and resounding (…)