2016

Lately, a number of people have been described as anti-national by the Hindutva lobby. Most shocking is their definition of anybody who worships ‘demons’ from Hindu mythology as also anti-national. The mythological figures belong to a distant past when the concept of nation-state was not there. Nation is a modern concept and it is defined by our Constitution which, in the wildest of imaginations, has no place for mythology. Only an insane person would confuse the two things. It is a pity (…)

The Idea of India
The “Idea of India” is itself a relatively new concept epitomised in catch phrases like “Incredible India”, “Shining India”, “Make in India”, etc. It has been marketed so as to convert India as a preferred destination for tourism and foreign direct investment, in consonance with the holy grail of economic development through GDP growth based upon aggressive and unquestioned industrialisation-at-any-cost. Arguably, the “Idea of India” is promoted by the adherents of (…)

WOMEN’S WORLD
by Bidyut Mohanty
Introduction
Persistence of structural violence has been culturally ingrained against women in all stages of their life-cycle and in everyday life both in the family as well as in the society at large. This is mostly due to the value system of patriarchal belief in apparently less valued division of labour sanctioned by the Dharm Shastras. Recently due to rising consciousness regarding gender equity several international and national laws have been (…)

“The National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), which operates under the Ministry of Human Resource Development, has introduced a form which requires authors of books NCPUL acquires annually to declare that the content will not be against the government or the country.” (http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/urdu-writers-asked-to-declare-my-book-not-against-the-govt-nation/)
The same source reproduces the form, originally circulated in Urdu, thus: “I, (…)

COMMUNICATION
I would like to offer some comments on the Political Notebook by B.D.G., entitled “One Death: Several Questions”, that appeared in the Mainstream issue of February 13, 2016.
One. B.D.G. writes that “the Indian Army is at a strategically advantageous position” at Siachen because it occupies the “top of the glacier” while Pakistani troops are “down below”. It is true that Indian troops occupy positions that are higher than Pakistani positions, but those are on the ridge line (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The last few months have witnessed the deterioration of Indo-Pak relations to the point of almost eye-ball-to-eyeball confrontation. Tempers have been stoked high and the fiercest propaganda bombardment has been going on between two neighbours born out of the same motherland.
The measure of this high-pitched tension was provided on the one side by Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s frenzied diatribe against India over the Kashmir issue, and by the disgraceful (…)

by Praveen Davar
The following article is being published on the eightyfifth anniversary of Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom; he was executed along with Sukhdev and Rajguru in Lahore on March 23, 1931.
The 85th death anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, the revolutionary icon of the freedom struggle, who attained martyrdom at the young age of 23, fell on March 23, 2016. Alongwith Sukhdev and Rajguru, Bhagat Singh was hanged to death less than a week before the commence-ment of the Karachi (…)

The discussion on JNU in Parliament brought out the political divide on the issue of nationalism and the functioning of the institutions of higher education in the country. JNU has been under severe attack since the Ninth of February when some shouted objectionable slogans on the JNU campus. These have been used to characterise JNU as anti-national. A video grab shows objectionable slogans being raised by a handful of people at a cultural event organised by a student group. The Students’ (…)

According to the Delhi grapevine, Americans, in their private conversations with Indian interlocutors who are opinion-makers, have been badmouthing Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar—just as they used to do to A.K. Antony in the UPA era. Their grievance remains the same—Parrikar is “slow” in decision-making.
Washington hopes that by the time US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter visits Delhi next month, a few multi-billion dollar arms deals could be finalised and also that the Ministry of (…)

by Hasan Hamidullah
The emergence of the Russian Air Force in Syria at a time when many had predicted the capture of Damascus by the ISIL and other fundamentalist elements within a brief spell, has thrown Ankara and Riyadh into confusion as it has foiled the Turkey-Saudi plan to bring the Sunni groups to power in Syria. The campaign unleashed by these two states to accuse the Russian Air Force and Assad’s forces of allegedly causing widespread civilian casualties in Syria is only a pretext (…)