2018

by Prem Singh
Although the recent attack on social activist Swami Agnivesh is being widely and strongly condemned, there are many people who, citing some earlier incidents involving Swamiji, perceive the attack as an inevitable and normal culmination. This is definitely most unfortunate. Those who do not agree with his earlier or present views and actions were, and are, absolutely free and within their rights to disagree. They are also not wrong in trying to oppose him in a democratic (…)

IMPRESSIONS
The furore over Shashi Tharoor’s remarks over the possibilities of India becoming a “Hindu Pakistan” must have surprised his enemies and his friends in equal measure. It also reminds us, yet again, that we live in a politically surcharged atmosphere where battles can suddenly break out over a gesture, a phrase, a nudge or a wink. Communal emotions have become the suste-nance of public life. They are the stuff of headlines and headlines are today the sum total of existence. (…)

Eightysix-year-old Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand sat on an indefinite fast in Haridwar on June 22, 2018 to demand making a law on conservation of river Ganga. Nobody came to see him from the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. He was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Haridwar but continued his fast there even after a month.
He has fasted earlier in 2008 for letting Bhagirathi flow uninterrupted between Gangotri and Uttarkashi in a (…)

by Irfan Engineer
Mob lynching has drastically increased in recent years, particularly since the election of the BJP Government. There has been a fourfold increase in cow-related violent incidents from less than five per cent of incidents of communal violence in 2010 to 20 per cent in 2017. (Subramanya, 2017) IndiaSpend web portal claimed that 25 persons were killed in 60 incidents of cow-related mob violence between 2010 and June 25, 2017 and 97 per cent of the incidents occurred after (…)

by Shachi Chawla
The third pillar of the government, judiciary, was envisaged to play an important role in the growth and development of the young democracy of India. It was regarded by the framers of the Constitution as central to a social revolution. Granville Austin points out that “the Constituent Assembly brought to the framing of the judicial provisions of the Constitution an idealism equalled only by that shown towards Funda-mental Rights”. It saw judiciary as critical to “upholding (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
When politicians as a community are in a state of siege in the eyes of the public, it is extremely short-sighted on the part of any government to make any move that may appear to the public as a means to cover up or to close the channels of the politician’s exposure.
While in the public mind, corruption among politicians has become a live issue since the Bofors bribery scandal, it was during Narasimha Rao’s Prime Ministership that the enormity of corruption in public (…)

The Union Government’s proposal of lateral entry of persons from “private sector companies, consultancy firms and international or multinational organisations”, as Joint Secretary (JS) is to “bring[ing] in fresh ideas and new approaches to governance and also to augment manpower”. [“Private sector employees can now apply for top government posts”; ;Economic Times, June 10, 2018] This would be unexceptionable except that such lateral entrants from the private sector will surely be subject to (…)

It is a measure of the maturity of any democracy that it is able to identify any signs of increasing distress and the resulting discontent among people, particularly vulnerable sections of people, in time and take remedial steps to reduce distress and discontent before it is too late. Such a challenge exists before the State Government of Jharkhand today as there have been clear signs of increasing frustration and denial of legitimate aspirations among the vulnerable sections of people, (…)

by Arun Srivastava
The BJP Government of Raghuvar Das in Jharkhand has been on the mission to grab tribal land and forests of the State to hand over to the corporate sector. Ever since he entered into the chamber of the Chief Minister, he has been busy evolving the strategy to help the big business houses. It is worth recalling that Das was installed as the Chief Minister overruling the claims of the tribal leaders who nurse the welfare of the community people. The alacrity shown by him in (…)

by Ram Puniyani
While Sonia Gandhi at a party meeting lamented that the Congress is being presented as a Muslim party,1 an anti-Hindu party,2 her own party’s major Muslim leader, Salman Khursheed, confessed that the Congress has the blood of Muslims on its hands.3 This raises a lot of questions about the nature of the Congress as a political party and as to how the Muslims of India respond to the appeal for support from the Congress in particular. In the wake of the UP election results (…)