2017

by Vijay Kumar
It was early 2009; one of the most distinguished former Foreign Secretaries, Muchkund Dubey, asked me about my assessment of Obama. Obama was in the White House for hardly a few weeks, and it was too early to make any meaningful evaluation. However, I had heard Obama’s great inaugural address on the customarily fixed day on January 20, 2009, and having been impressed, I offered a tentative comment that he brought civility in public utterances, a comment and compliment one is (…)

How does the poll drama unfold, when it’s time to be at the hustings? First, idealism, dug out, dusted, put in a cover artfully printed, is pledged to arouse cynical masses. Then, slogans, banners, scripted afresh, pitch attuned, visuals focussed on, serve as a ploy to attract attention. Promises galore are showered next; they spring from an alluring text for swing on caste and religious lines. The campaign, peaking up, declines into acrimony, mud-slinging; masks falling off, nexus (…)

by Shah alam khan
Beyond the orgasms of patriotism and far from the rhetoric of nationalism breathes the real India, an India of flesh and blood. And no matter what amount of chest-thumping some among us do, it is getting clearer by the day that it was this real India which bled white following the demonetisation drive announced by the government on November 8, 2016. And it wasn’t about ATMs or banks or GDP, or the growth rates, it was about people. No wonder, stories of real India are the (…)

TRIBUTE
by Varughese George
P. Viswambharan, who led the socialist movement in Kerala for several decades, passed away at his ancestral home in Kovalam in Thiruvananthapuram on December 9, 2016. He entered public activity through the Travancore Students Congress that was affiliated to the All India Students Congress. That was in the mid-1940s. Though the country was preparing for national independence, in Travancore the Diwan, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyer, had been meditating about an (…)

by O.P. Jaiswal
The Preamble to the Constitution of India declares it as a secular democratic republic for the people of this country.
Article 1 of the Constitution says that India, that is, Bharat, is a Union of States.
Article 25 says that all citizens are entitled to freedom of religion and have the right to profess, practise and propagate any religion of their choice.
It is well known that our country did not choose a state religion for itself. A secular state is the order of the (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by Aejaz Ahmad Wani
A Feast of Vultures: The Hidden Business of Democracy in India by Josy Joseph; Harper Collins, India; Hardcover; 2016; Pages: 256; Price: Rs 599.
A nineteenth century French novelist and playwright, Honoré de Balzac, writes: “Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.” While this speaks of the reality in almost all modern democracies, one finds a textbook case in Indian democracy. If you know where laws can be (…)

Our Chief Minister stated recently that it is not possible to get Special Status for Goa. The special status was demanded by a resolution of the Goa Legislative Assembly moved by the then Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar, and in a memorandum submitted under the leadership of Shri Parrikar to the former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in 2013. Special status was also promised by the BJP at the time of the last Assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections. Our Chief Minister was then a Minister. (…)

by Sadhan Mukherjee
There is clear indication that fascist forces, you may call them Rightist forces if you like, are growing the world over. It is better to be forewarned than to regret later.
One may recall that in Europe, which has given both liberal and fascist ideas, the ascendancy to power of fascist forces became possible due to three main reasons: first, weak governments being in office; second, the economic disaster that followed the First World War; and third, lack of people’s (…)