2017

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
India’s traditional foreign policy is getting distorted beyond recognition under Narendra Modi who has become the de facto Foreign Minister, relegating Sushma Swaraj, the actual incumbent of that office, to an obscure background. Modi’s recent visit to Israel and signing billions of dollars of contracts for supply of military hardware while making it a point not to visit Palestine is a deliberate snub to the Arab world which has stood by India all through.
From the (…)

Every statement or a visit by a foreign dignitary has to be related to our attitude on Pakistan. Even if there is no mention of Islamabad, we stretch the observation to the point where it is meant to be so. American Presidents have so far been hedging an open criticism of Pakistan because the US has been supplying arms to Islamabad. But for the first time, America has dropped ifs and buts to pull up Pakistan for abetting terrorism and giving shelter to the militants.
President Donald Trump (…)

by Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal
A society made habitual of violence, intimi-dations, suspicions—where killings, torture, sexual abuse and pellet-gun related blindings are the norm—is so brutalised that it will try to respond with its own idiom of brutality. Humanity today, sadly so, stands throttled in Kashmir and there is need to reflect and introspect, if this trend is to be reversed or even arrested.
No ifs and buts; and no denials. The lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohammad (…)

by Sanjal Shastri
It has now been more than a week since the UK parliamentary election results were announced. Just like the Brexit vote, which had baffled pollsters, the recently concluded elections were equally puzzling. Political pundits had predicted a landslide in favour of Teresa May. However, the elections resulted in a hung parliament.
Apart from the most obvious impact on Mrs May’s political future, the elections have certain important takeaways. From the demographic factors, to (…)

We are going through a political time in which our cherished notions of politics and democracy are at stake. This crisis propels us to revisit the political thought and political life of late Rajni Kothari, in search of an alternative notion of politics. The editors of a volume of essays dedicated to Rajni Kothari observed in the mid-1990s that his “contribution to the survival and deepening of Indian democracy is evident not only in his scholarly work but also in his life-long engagement (…)

by Arun Srivastava
The RSS and BJP have embarked on the mission to communalise and politicise the Indian Army. Behind the façade of nationalism, the main thrust of the saffron brigade has been to create a situation where even an objective analysis or criticism of the Army is taboo, a pariah. Never in the past has the Army been so much in news as it is today notwithstanding the fact that it fought many glorious wars against Pakistan which were even applauded and appreciated by the global (…)

Ransomware worm WannaCry struck at and crippled the UK’s National Health Scheme, causing a national emergency of sorts. The operations systems of British Airways, Luf-thansa and Air France were targets of cyber attack on passenger handling, causing economic loss but fortunately no accident. All this is cause for concern in India, because of India’s huge vulnerability to cyber attack. Now [“India’s Su-30MKI likely downed by China’s Cyber Weapons”; ], an Indian Air Force Su-30 Mk-I jet fighter (…)

by Kunal Ghosh
In the first week of June, 2017, the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings declared a list in which IIT, Delhi and IIT, Bombay ranked 172 and 179 respectively and the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (hereinafter abbreviated to IISc) ranked 190. However, the IISc is the sixth best institute in the world in terms of the QS’ ‘Citations per Faculty’ rating. (Ref: The Indian Express, June 8, 2017, Ahmedabad) This rating measures the quality and impact of (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
On July 1, 1997 Hong Kong came back to the People’s Republic of China from Britain. On the twentieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s sovereignty having been resumed to the PRC, we are reproducing the following article written by N.C. on that historic event. It was published twenty years ago on July 5, 1997 in Mainstream.
Sun Sets on the British Empire by Nikhil Chakravartty http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article5785.html

by Saumitra Mohan
The world seems to be moving increasingly backward with the march of time much to the chagrin of all Panglossian expectations of the humanitarian values bringing about an eclectic, cosmopolitan and catholic human society. The incursions of regressive and retrograde forces on liberal-democratic ethos of our times are more stark and insidious today than ever before.
When the Berlin Wall came down in September, 1990 or when the former USSR disintegrated, people like (…)