2017

To
The Chairperson, Governing Body, Ram Lal Anand College,
University of Delhi
June 14, 2017
Subject: Appeal against disciplinary action and termination of services of Professor GN Saibaba
Dear Sir,
We, the undersigned, current and past teachers of various universities in India and abroad, are writing to draw your attention to the alarming situation concerning one of our colleagues and fellow teacher, Dr G.N. Saibaba (Assistant Professor of English, Ram LalAnand College, (…)

MUSINGS
The attack on Amarnath yatra pilgrims, killing seven (the figure has since risen to eight) and injuring several, is not just extremely tragic and shocking, but totally against the very concept of Kashmiriyat. Its hard, if not impossible, to believe that any Kashmiri could have carried out such a horrifying attack on the pilgrims. In my near 30-year-long association with the Valley Kashmiris (right from 1990), I haven’t come across a single Kashmiri who had a word to say against the (…)

by Vijay Kumar
The happenings of the past few weeks, particularly indiscriminate ban on slaughter-houses and formation of anti-Romeo squads, ostensibly for insulating the young girls from eve-teasing but, in reality, unleashing crusade against love-Jihad after the formation of the new Government in Uttar Pradesh in the wake of an unprecedented mandate and menacing rise of cow vigilantism, have brought to the fore the inherent tension between the rule of the majority, on the one hand, and (…)

The following article was written sometime back but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.
Russia has not been a significant beneficiary so far of the Chinese honeypot known as the Belt and Road Initiative—although there is vast untapped potential to attract Chinese invest-ments into Russia’s infrastructure and industry. Yet, no sooner than the invitations went out for the BRI Forum summit in Beijing (May 14-15), word came that President Vladimir Putin looked forward to (…)

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was enacted to ensure economic security to those most deprived of it by providing them a guarantee of employment close to their home. However, the real life experience of many workers, who have toiled at these work sites, is that due to low wage rate as well as frequent delays in wage payment this security is often denied to them.
The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha is a national level platform of people’s organisations, trade (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Once again China has appeared on the radar screen of Indian security. Although officially the Indian authorities have so far denied any knowledge of Chinese troop concentration all along the far-flung frontier, the fact that for over two weeks now a Chinese patrol has dug in at about seven kilometres within the Indian territory at a strategic point in the Arunachal Pradesh, can hardly be dismissed as just as accidental intrusion, innocently undertaken. Those who have (…)

TRIBUTE
by Prabhat Patnaik
When one reaches a certain age, one has to steel oneself to the idea of hearing periodically the news of one’s friends passing away. But when the passing of several friends gets concentrated within a very short span of time—each of them a brilliant person whose loss the country, not just one personally, can ill-afford—and when their deaths, by modern-day standards, are premature, then such news becomes difficult to bear. Three such outstanding individuals (…)

by D.C. Bakshi
Tolstoyan Foreshortening is a ‘perspective’ in which an individual recedes behind the accidents of history or the forces of society; his image getting restricted to the ‘episodic’.
General Omar Bardley’s famous words on quality thrusts for the profession of arms, continue to be the keystone for professional armies throughout the world. He warned:
“Inferior inducements bring second-rate men; second-rate men bring second-rate security. In war, there are no prizes for (…)

WOMEN’S WORLD
by Nilofar Suhrawardy
What can be said about the capital punishment accorded to the accused in the Nirbhaya gang-rape case? Should it be expected to have any significant impact on the number and kind of rapes being committed in India? Just a few days after the Apex Court announced its verdict, at least two heinous rape-crimes were reported. One was the rape of an infant and the other a gang-rape in Rohtak. The victim was abducted from Sonipat to Rohtak and her body was (…)

REVIEW ARTICLE
by Subhendu Dasgupta
Economic Challenges for the Contemporary World : Essays in Honour of Prabhat Patnaik edited by Mausumi Das, Sabyasachi Kar, Nandan Nawn; Sage, New Delhi; 2016.
This book is a collection of essays, contributed by the Ph.D students of Prabhat Patnaik, Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, as a tribute to their teacher. ‘Prabhat Patnaik,’ write the editors of this volume, ‘has enthralled successive (…)