2017

by Ahmad Zaboor
The situation in the State of Jammu and Kashmir continues to be edgy and explosive. It is in this midst that the autonomy given to the State under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution and the various privileges that engender from it is once again in the news. The petition challenging 35A, which bestows certain rights to the residents of the State while prohibiting outsiders to purchase immovable property in the State, is before the Supreme Court. The outcome of the (…)

MUSINGS
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Aditya-nath, should step down. In fact, he should be asked, if not forced and compelled, to resign. Let’s not overlook the fact that only recently over 60 children died in less than six days in the BRD Medical College situated in his constituency, Gorakhpur. A constituency he has been representing for the last nearly 20 years. Also, not to be overlooked is the fact that encephalitis didn’t strike overnight. Eastern Uttar Pradesh districts, (…)

Last two or three years have witnessed an extremely disburbing development in Indian politics, that is, the emergence of extra-constitu-tional centres of power in the form of Gau-rakshaks. These so-called protectors of cows don’t hesitate to take the law in their hands and go about bullying, ‘punishing’, even killing people on the barest suspicion that they are bee-featers. They have thus made a mockery of the rule of law. Only once in 70 years of independence was such a phenomenon (…)

by Pradeep Nair
Mobile or computer games are often contextualised with teenhood. Teens across the globe engage themselves playfully with the strategies and planning of playing complex games on mobile phones and iPads. They spontaneously utilise acts of fun to experiment in the virtual world they inhibit. When this engagement has a conflict with the established socialising norms, parents become alert and begin to regulate the gaming activities of their children.
Playing games is universal (…)

The Context
North Korea is threatening to emerge as the casus belli for an impending US-China conflict. President Donald Trump’s accusation that Beijing is not doing enough to rein in its prodigal younger cousin, North Korea, from its pursuance of nuclear and missile development programmes and the Chinese rejection of such an accusation could be the trigger. Trump’s pressure on China is precipitated by the launch of an inter-continental ballistic missile, second within a month in July, by (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Undivided Communist Movement in Bengal: Background—India by Bhanudeb Dutta; People’s Publishing House, New Delhi; 2016; pages 344; Rs 450.00.
This book, written by a veteran Communist, is an attempt to understand the emergence and growth of the communist movement in Bengal against the background of how the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) changed its course at different moments of history from a small beginning till 1964, when the Party witnessed its first split (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Three landmarks to cover in a single day—that was how some of us spent our fiftieth Independence Day.
The first of the pilgrimage was to the Indo-Pak border post at Wagah to celebrate the anniversary of the freedom at midnight.
Reaching Amritsar by the Shatabdi Express in the late evening of August 14, about a dozen of us led by the President of the Citizens for Democracy, Kuldip Nayar, we were received by a huge crowd at the Amritsar station itself—which included (…)

TRIBUTE
It was a court room of the mid-1960s in Calcutta. A prosecutor, on behalf of the Government of West Bengal, was hell-bent on ensuring conviction for some leading poets of the Hungry Generation like Moloy Roy Chowdhury. Subimal Basak, Subo Acharya and Samir Roy Chowdhury. Intrepid as the latter were, their struggle was to rid poetry of the establishmentarian tradition of civilising manoeuvre and were for a narcissistic spirit, injected into the creative mindset of bards. They sought (…)

About two decades ago, Mangal Singh was receiving high praise and appreciation from highly placed officials and scientists. His invention, called Mangal Turbine, meant for lifting water without diesel or electricity, had been widely commended for its high potential of reducing costs of farmers, saving foreign exchange and bringing down greenhouse emissions in a big way. He had also received a patent for this. His village in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh (Bundelkhand region) was being (…)

Editorial
Today is August 15, 2017. This day marks the seventieth anniversary of our attainment of independence after around 200 years of British colonial thraldom. It is indeed a historic occasion which is being observed and celebrated as such.
It is on this day that we are once again reminded of the stirring words of our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who, in a message to the press seventy years ago, had thoughtfully underscored on August 15, 1947:
“We are citizens of a (…)