2017

I vainly search for my favourite television anchors like Karan Thapar and, more recently, Barkha Dutt. I am told that they have been taken off. Who has done this is a matter of conjecture. Some say that it is the pressure of the Narendra Modi Government while a few others lament that it was the doing of the owners of the channel. Whoever has done it has acted as the censor.
What surprises me is the absence of protests. In my time, there would be noise or a meeting to point out that the (…)

MUSINGS
Today, there is not just dismay but sorrow spreading out, as this land is in the grip of a political mafia, holding sway on all possible fronts. Hopelessness all around, to such an extent that I don’t really feel ‘azaad’ in this Azaad nation. Have to think a hundred times before I can decide what to wear or eat or even greet. Yes, if my as-salaam-alaikums (may peace be on you) are rather loud and clear then all eyes turn on me! Yes, in all possible spheres one is being made to feel (…)

You might know that India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University—consistently placed at the top of the list of India’s best institutions of higher learning—has been much in the disapproving eye of the political forces that now govern the country.
The chief charge against the University over the last three years or so has been that her scholars insist on doing their own thinking even on such an issue as “nationalism”.
At a time when educational institutions are expected—and increasingly by (…)

by Arun Srivastava
Now there is no more ambiguity. What a coincidence the closely guarded secret was out on Wednesday in the public domain with Nitish announcing his decision to break the maha-gathbandhan and going to the BJP fold. It was not only the charges of corruption against the Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi that in fact made Nitish to crush the mahagathbandhan of the secular forces, instead it was the nasty political scheming by the BJP that made him part the company of Laloo (…)

by Vahidha Nizam
The health wing of the RSS, Arogya Bharati, has been holding programmes to create ‘fair, tall and intelligent’ babies. Tailor-made ‘designer babies’, the experts of Arogya Bharati claim, can be ‘produced’ using what is called ‘garbha sanskar’, an ancient Indian wisdom.
The project is called ‘Garbha Vigyan Sanskar’. It is reported to have delivered 450 ‘customised babies’ so far and its target is to establish a ‘Garbh Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra’, a facili-tation centre in (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
August 9 this year marked the 75th anniversary of the ‘Quit India‘ movement also known as the August Revolution. On this occasion we reproduce the piece of N.C. published in Mainstream twentyfive years ago on August 8, 1992 on the occasion of the golden jubilee of the movement.
A grateful nation is celebrating the golden jubilee of the ‘Quit India’ movement which, fifty years ago, marked the final glorious phase of our freedom struggle.
With Gandhiji‘s clarion call (…)

by Atanu Sengupta and Sanjoy De
An Instant Pill
In the evening hours on a cold November 8, 2016, the de facto head of the Union Government promulgated a new message. A strict restriction was imposed on the use of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes that were prevalent at that time with a subsequent withdrawal within a few days. It generated disbelief, astonishment and also a barrage of comments. The debates on demonetisation started from that day and goes on unabated to this day.
Going (…)

There is a long history of Russia being kicked around as a political football in the United States. The circumstances leading to the latest Russia Sanctions Bill passed by the US Congress has a striking similarity with the so-called Jackson-Vanik Amendment [J-VA] of 1974, which put roadblocks on the policy of détente toward the Soviet Union initiated by President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, in the late sixties.
The J-VA specifically prevented Nixon from (…)

We are celebrating hundred years of the Russian Revolution, the greatest one that changed the course of history. There undoubtedly have been great revolutions in history but none like this one. The Russian Revolution changed the way we approached the society and the world. It, for the first time, put elimination of exploitation and poverty, the question of the radical reorganisation of the whole society on the agenda. The earlier revolutions simply continued the social development. The (…)

by R.G. Gidadhubli
Ukraine has been a victim of crisis during the last few years—lost Crimea in 2014 by the alleged annexation by Russia, the ongoing conflict in the eastern part of the country adjoining Russia due to which about 10,000 people have died, and strained political relations with Russia. Even as Germany and France have taken the initiative in resolving this conflict under the Minsk Deal since 2015, durable peace is yet to emerge.
What has added to Ukraine’s problem is that on (…)