2018

EDITORIAL
Politics in Tamil Nadu has taken a new turn with the passing of 94-year-old Muthuvel Karunanidhi in Chennai last evening. And today with countless persons lining the road from the Rajaji Hall, where his body was kept for public viewing and enabling leaders of all parties to offer floral tributes to him, to the Marina Beach, where he was eventually buried at a spot near the memorial to his mentor C.N. Annadurai, it was more than transparent that apart from being an outstanding (…)

More gruesome details about the Alwar lynching have come to light. Rakbar Khan, the victim, could have been saved if the police had acted in time. In fact, the force stopped for tea and wasted three-and-a-half hours in reaching the victim to the hospital. He bled to death. If one were to put all the pieces together, one would come to the conclusion that the police delay was deliberate.
The religion of the victim—he was a Muslim—has been his undoing. Inquiry would give details but there is (…)

by Mahendra Ved
India’s former Chief Election Commissioner and scholar S.Y. Quraishi once told a gathering that Islam and democracy are not always compatible. It shocked some Muslims present, prompting them to privately inquire whether he was a Muslim. An observer in the just-concluded polls in Pakistan, he is not the first to say this.
This is the record of most Muslims and/or Muslim majority nations from Malacca to Mediterranean where democracy, not necessarily in its ideal (…)

When minister garlands convict. Democracy is at its peak; When bureaucrat speaks the truth. The iron-frame has a leak.
Some media mention the minister. Most bash the bureaucrat; Loyal spokesperson thunders How the minister is a patriot.
The voices that would rectify The sickening perfidy Find the caged parrot chasing them To the ends of the city.
Across the land from end to end A fever is in the pate; Sanity slinks to a backseat As the righteous celebrate hate.
Laws propitiate (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
This was the week, fiftytwo years ago, that marked the parting of ways between the Communists and the Congress. It was the Communist opposition to the ‘Quit India’ resolution at the historic AICC session in August 1942 that ultimately led to the expulsion of the Communists from the Congress organisations in 1946. Incidentally, the eviction of the Communists from the Congress marked the beginning of the process of transformation of the Congress from an all-embracing (…)

It was Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, when he was India’s Prime Minister, who coined the slogan “Jai Jawan! Jai Kisan!”, in the realistic under-standing that the Jawan provides national external security (since then he has also been providing internal security due to failure of governance) and the Kisan provides the nation with food security. Were Shastri alive today, it seems likely that he would have added “Jai Bhim!” to his original slogan, since it is the so-called Shudra, the “untouchable”, (…)

by Roohul Amin Malik
During the phase of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led collation with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Jammu and Kashmir, the approach to deal with separatists like the Hurriyat, youth stone-pelters and militants had remained very much aggressive. No doubt, in their common minimum programme of alliance, it was mentioned to create an environ-ment of talks with all stakeholders in the Kashmir Valley. But, in practical terms there was something else. Many of the (…)

by Badre Alam Khan and Mohammad Shahid Alam
Recently under the banner of the Institute of Objective Studies (IOS), a report has been released on ”Vision 2025, Socio-Economic Inequalities: Why does India’s Economic Growth need an Inclusive Agenda?’’ on July 6, 2018. A keynote was delivered by an eminent scholar, Amitabh Kundu, who is currently the Chairman of the Post-Sachar Evaluation Committee, 2014, and a former Professor of the JNU at the Jamia Millia Islamia, in the presence of eminent (…)

by Aurobindo Ghose
There is more to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s apparently graceful response to the Twitter trolling she has faced over her Ministry’s issuance of a passport to an inter-faith couple than meets the eye.
Swaraj has been the target of offensive tweets for helping Tanvi Seth, the wife of Mohammad Anas Siddiqui, get her passport after an officer allegedly harassed her for not changing her name to a Muslim one after her marriage.
It is significant that a (…)

IMPRESSIONS
The big question is finally being addressed: who will be the Opposition’s candidate for the Prime Minister? It will be unrealistic of course to expect an answer at this stage. But the unexpected flexibility in the Congress’ position
tells its own tale. Two days after taking a stand firmly in favour of Rahul Gandhi, it said the party would be accommodative, that it saw itself as a facilitator of alliances, that it was ready to accept “any non-RSS candidate” as the Prime (…)