2018

Editorial
In four days’ time, on August 15, 2018, we will be celebrating our seventysecond Independence Day. And within less than a year the country will be holding its next general elections to elect the seventeenth Lok Sabha.
Today itself has appeared in one of the leading national dailies of the Capital a detailed interview of our Prime Minister. While completely dismissing the Opposition’s campaign against him and his regime and ridiculing the mahagathbandhan the Opposition parties (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Anguish, not Anger
The countdown for a national crisis of fearsome dimension has begun. The build-up of a nationwide communal conflict could be discerned, as one finds that the feverish activity for the building of the Ram temple at Ayodhya is having its repercussions in distant Thiruva-nanthapuram where the Army has had to undertake flag march.
The onset of the crisis was evident on July 18 when at the stroke of midnight, the marathon session of the National (…)

It was August 12, 1947, three days before India became free. My father, a practising doctor, summoned us, three brothers and asked what our programme was. I told him that I wanted to stay in Pakistan just as the Muslims would in India. My elder brother, who was studying medicine at Amritsar, intervened to say that Muslims would ask the Hindus to vacate the house in West Punjab just as the Muslims living in East Punjab would be asked to leave. I asked how that could be possible if the Hindus (…)

by Eduardo Faleiro
On August 15, we celebrate the Independence Day. On that day, in 1947, India became a free and democratic country. The British ruled India for around two hundred years. Though they came to India for trading purposes, they became the rulers due to our own internal discords which offered them an opportunity to establish their hegemony. The Indian National Congress and some other political organisations participated in the national independence movement under the guidance (…)

by L.K. Sharma
Recent events in some prominent democratic nations have highlighted the internal threats that are hard to see and even harder to counter. A military dictator can be identified.
Democracy is in the news in a Pakistan that has held controversial elections and an India that is gripped by hectic preparations for the elections next year. True democrats are wary of the role of Pakistan’s Army that has directly ruled the country for half the period during 70 years of the nation’s (…)

The publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam on July 30 has once again raised the question: who is an Assamese in Assam? Four million permanent residents of Assam have been excluded from the NRC. Those excluded have been given time until August 28 to apply again with necessary documents which include, among other things, the proof that the applicant’s father and grandfather and mother and grandmother had been permanent residents of Assam—a condition very few can (…)

COMMUNICATION
Bhagwat Prasad, a leading social activist of Bundelkhand region, breathed his last on August 8. As director of a major voluntary organisation of this region, named Akhil Bharatiya Samaj Seva Sansthan (ABSSS), Bhagwat Prasad was closely associated with several welfare programmes relating to the welfare of Kol tribals and other weaker sections of this region. In particular he will be remembered for the important contribution he made in the execution of several successful water (…)

The year 2018 is being celebrated as the twentyfifth year of decentralisation at the grass-roots level all over India.
The 73rd Constitution Amendment Act 1993 was enacted with a vision of achieving three objectives through the path of participatory grassroots democracy:
a. Equitable economic growth. By this, it was envisaged that all sections of the Indian society, irrespective of caste, creed, gender, and religion will get relatively equal share of the fruits of growth.
b. (…)

by Abid Ahmad Shah
India is a country of people belonging to varied regions, religions, sects, communities, castes; etc. From the past times till date, the multiculturalism and plural ethos of this country has set a strong precedent to the world about this land of diversity. This country is the country of its natives, be it Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, Buddhists, etc. No one can escape its identity at the same time. This belongs to as much to one and sundry.
Gone are the (…)

Bury him where you will Masters of the day, You cannot ever bury His work, his legacy,
He took no help from god For his mission among the legion Of the oppressed; his godless humanism Was more spiritual than religion.
His school-drop-out pen Vanquished the literati; He taught the learned to think Of justice and equality.
If only the bigoted North Would take a leaf from him, These brutal times may yet return To some redeeming shame.
Badri Raina