2017

by Monaem Sarker
Bangladesh plans to have two large Russian nuclear power reactors in operation, the first from 2023. This is to meet rapidly-increasing demand and reduce dependence on natural gas.
Bangladesh produced 56 TWh gross in 2014, giving per capita consumption of 320 kWh/yr. Some 46 TWh in 2014 was from natural gas and 8 TWh from oil (IEA data). The electricity demand is rising rapidly (nine per cent in FY 2013) and capacity was 11.3 GWe in January 2014, plus some 500 MWe of (…)

In the course of its development, capitalist production gets stratified into various layers and sectors, each with its own characteristics, place and role. In fact, in its early phase, capitalism was dominated by ‘laissez faire’ or free competition. There were numerous indi-vidual and private entrepreneurs, owners, workshops, mills and factories, which competed with each for capital, raw materials, finished products, profits and market. In principle and practice, they had equal access to the (…)

TRIBUTE
Nirupam Sen, 70, who passed away at a New Delhi hospital on Saturday (July 1, 2017) after having suffered a stroke followed by kidney failure, was truly an epitome of integrity and fearlessness in Indian diplomacy, qualities that are becoming increasingly rare these days.
A brilliant student of St Stephen’s Collage, Delhi, he joined the Indian Foregn Service in 1969 and served in Indian missions in Moscow, Warsaw, Budapest, Oslo, Sofia, Colombo. His most important assignment was (…)

MUSINGS
I try and avoid going for meets, seminars, conferences on the prevailing situation in the Kashmir Valley and also the grim realities facing the Muslims in India. The ‘why’ to this is rather simplistic: everyone is well aware of the horrifying ground realities; yet the state seems determined to implement the set RSS agenda it’s been entrusted with... One gets to hear the same set of ‘experts’ who have nothing very offbeat to offer in terms of fighting the agenda or its (…)

EDITORIAL
PM Narendra Modi has returned to the Capital after his visit to the US and talks with President Donald Trump, both of which have been termed as broadly successful. The success of the trip has been measured in terms of the “far more positive vibes” that one witnessed in the Modi-Trump summit than “several other recent summits involving Trump” like the one with Angela Merkel, the German President, as has been underlined by our former Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran, now a senior (…)

That the UPA and NDA have chosen Dalits to be candidates for the office of the President is an expression of the importance of the Dalit constituency in the politics of India. As a person with a public conscience, however, I tend to hold that the NDA candidate, Sri Ramnath Kovind, is a big disappointment. Though a Dalit, he has not served the Dalit cause all through the years of his politics. It is true, the BJP has an ideology of its own. One did not expect them to nominate someone beyond (…)

by Ram Puniyani
Volumes have been written on Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. There are diverse views about both. The views on them depend on the ideology of the person giving these views. To add to the prevailing views, recently (June 2017) the BJP President, Amit Shah, described Gandhi as a chatur (shrewd) baniya (trader caste). With this characterisation of Gandhi, Amit Shah joins the illustrious company of Jinnah who also called Gandhi a baniya, the caste of his birth. As such (…)

Strange, in the process of selecting who should be the next President of India, the nation has forgotten the Emergency which was imposed some fortytwo years ago. More than one lakh people were detained without trial. The media, which could have reported the conditions prevailing then, was muzzled. Civil servants obediently issued the orders, which came from Sanjay Gandhi, the extra-constitutional autho-rity that ruled the country in the name of his mother, the then Prime Minster.
The (…)

by M.A. Sofi
How does one describe a political formation, a party, an outfit whose single most purpose of being in politics is to win elections, never mind the tools and methods being employed in fulfilment of this goal as its raison d’etre? With its gaze now firmly fixed on 2019, the party at the helm seems to be pulling no punches in ensuring a repeat of the UP miracle at the hustings, using all the tricks in the trade to that end. The effortless ease with which it has been using the (…)

by Kumudini Pati
On May 30, 2017, newspapers reported that the BJP chief, Amit Shah, had rushed to the Nagpur RSS headquarters and was closeted with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in an in-camera meeting for the whole day on May 29. Naturally, speculation was rife among journalists that the BJP had developed cold-feet in the face of the massive opposition to its cattle-slaughter ban, especially in the southern States, which even threatened to precipitate a constitutional crisis of sorts with (…)