2017

by Pradeep Nair and Sandeep Sharma
In the wake of the social media, the political-public sphere is broadening. The scope of feedback from the public directly to their representatives has set a new phase in public opinion and policy formations. Social media platforms have arguably enabled the public to set the agenda for their representatives by pressing like button on their facebook updates, sharing and commenting on these updates. Communication scholars and political scientists have (…)

by Pratip Chattopadhyay
Contemporary Indian politics is under the siege of reactionary Rightist political forces exemplified by the rising electoral mandate for the BJP since 2014. At the same time efforts are there to conglomerate all Opposition political forces with one agenda—to dislodge the ruling party from power by halting the BJP wave. With the BJP candidate, Ramnath Kovind, becoming the President securing 74 per cent votes as against the Opposition candidate, Meira Kumar, securing (…)

COMMUNICATION
The chain reaction to the questionable exit of Paranjoy Guha Thakurta from EPW continues. My article, “EPW confronting Crisis of Identity” (Mainstream, July 29, 2017), catches a segment of it.
On July 25, two days before the Sameeksha Trust’s Managing Trustee, D.N. Ghosh, was scheduled to meet the EPW editorial staff, the latter (not all), shot off a letter to the ST, raising several allegations against Guha Thakurta. (…)

Once again the situation in the villages around the Narmada river has become so serious as to demand the attention of all people who are committed to justice. In fact this time the situation is more serious than ever before as with the rise in the dam height and the closing of gates many more people are now threatened by submergence than before.
Medha Patkar, the leading social activist of the country and founder member of the Narmada Bachao Aandolan (NBA), is at the time of writing this (…)

TRIBUTE
The following is a tribute to Prof P.M. Bhargava, the distinguished molecular biologist and indefatigable champion of promoting scientific temper and self-reliance, from the Council for Social Development. He passed away on August 1 in Hyderabad after a brief illness. He was the Chairperson of the CSD Southern Regional Centre’s Managing Committee at Hyderabad.
In the passing away of Professor Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, India has lost an eminent scientist, an influential public (…)

Among India’s fine politicians there
Is but one who never loses his shine.
Like the Kohinoor, he passes from
Hand to hand, crown to crown, enemy
To enemy, friend to friend, glowing
For all with equal light just so long
As they keep him at the height.
An unshakeably principled man,
He finds a new cause for cleaning
Up the realm, then, at opportune time,
Returns to the previous. All about
Him is above board and pristine,
Nothing devious. He has a manner
Most innocuous (…)

EDITORIAL
Whatever has happened since last evening in Patna—that is, after the Bihar CM tendered his resignation as the head of the JD(U)-RJD-Congress mahagathbandhan government there following a meeting of the JD(U) MLAs—has stunned the secular democratic forces of the nation. And this also includes progressive secular-democrats in the JD(U). One of them, Ali Anwar, did not mince words to say that the development was indeed a national catastrophe because only the BJP would benefit from it (…)

Shri Raj Nath Singh, our hard-working Minister for Home Affairs, is a good secular man, one who has a felt recognition and understanding of the unquantifiably rich and diverse Muslim contribution to the making of India’s economic and cultural life through the centuries—a nationalist who does not think Muslims are not proper enough Indians because their chief holy land, Mecca, lies outside the territory of Bharat. It is accepted that his tenure as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh was (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
July 16 this year marked legendary freedom fighter Aruna Asaf Ali’s 108th birth anniversary. She passed away twentyone years ago on July 29, 1996. As a tribute to her abiding memory we reproduce here N.C.’s moving piece and a poem on her by Som Benegal—both published after her demise.
Generations spanning over centuries have been told that the French Revolution devoured its own children. In a sense, this could be said also of the Russian Revolution in which many of (…)

Raisina Hill’s New Tenant
Since President Pranab Mukherjee is laying down office this week, we carry here two pieces by Nikhil Chakravartty, written twenty years ago in July and November 1997, that bring out the importance of one of Mukherjee’s most illustrious predecessors as the country’s head of state, K.R. Narayanan, in our polity and the significant role he played as the President.
By the time these lines reach the reader, India will be having a new President who, according to the (…)