2018

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is ostensibly aimed at helping out lesser developed countries of Asia by building infrastructure and connectivity for them. However, it is associated with certain symptoms that are ominous. China has achieved technical superiority several notches above its surrounding neighbours, except South Korea, and second only to Japan in Asia; but in size, in terms of population and area, it is a behemoth compared to little South Korea or Japan. So its demand for raw (…)

MUSINGS
If the union Minister for Civil Aviation, Jayant Sinha, is genuinely repentant about garlanding the lynching-killing accused in Jharkhand, then he ought to take the first flight to the particular village in Haryana’s Mewat belt, where dairy-man Rakbar alias Akbar Khan lived with his wife and children, till he was lynched to death last week in the neighbouring Alwar district of Rajasthan. Jayant Sinha should meet the victim’s family and also provide a sarkari job for his widow and (…)

What’s there in a hug?
It may be desi, bidesi or even chipko.
But two hearts come closer,
narrowing the distance.
The effect may be different:
affectionate, startling,
embarrassing or artificial.
Yet it sends out a message.
You may differ from your opponent,
but demonise him not, instead
hold him in human bond.
—A.K. Das

EDITORIAL
Once again the country’s Apex Court has risen to the occasion to unambiguously meet the challenge of mob vigilantism.
“Horrendous acts of mobocracy can’t be permitted to inundate the law of the land. Earnest action and concrete steps have to be taken to protect citizens from the recurrent pattern of violence, which can’t be allowed to become the new normal.”
These were the considered views of the Supreme Court aired yesterday. It adopted a series of “preventive, remedial and (…)

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has sentenced twice popularly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for 10 years in prison. The general remarks about the verdict is that it is too harsh. Nawaz Sharif, who heard about the judgment in London, has said that he would return to Pakistan. However, sources close to the rulers say that he would be arrested as soon as he lands in the country.
Once again it seems that the confrontation between the civilian rulers and the military is building up. Perhaps, the (…)

by Ram Puniyani
On the eve of the 43rd anniversary of the Emergency, which was imposed on the country in 1975, the BJP has come out strongly condemning the event, issued a half-page advertisement and Modi said that it was imposed to save the power of a family. There are claims that the BJP’s parent organisation, the RSS, and its political predecessors valiantly fought against the Emergency. Surprisingly many streams of Indian politics, like the CPI(M), shades of socialists, and sections of (…)

IMPRESSIONS
India’s biggest achievement since independence is its march to leadership ranks in space technology. In June last year the national space organisation ISRO put into space a rocket as heavy as 200 fully grown elephants, making it a major player in the satellite launch industry alongside the US, France and Russia.
The pioneers who prepared the ground for this great leap forward were Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai, men of impeccable scientific credentials. Bhabha pioneered (…)

by Tapan Bose
The cynical break-up of the PDP-BJP coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir by the BJP without any prior notice is a clear evidence of its plans to continue with the policy of “no dialogue” and harsh suppression of all forms of protest. The policy that the Modi Government has been following is a combination of (a) harsh crackdowns on the agitating youth; (b) undermining the initiatives of all mainstream parties; and (c) taking Kashmir out of the India-Pakistan equation. It (…)

by Mustafa Khan
What blunder has brought such a crisis in J&K that many perceive that India is killing its own people rather than the terrorists or the armed militants fighting the Army? The long promised plebiscite has simply become an illusion. Instead there is the shackle of abolition of the kind of limited autonomy that was promised decades ago. The Kashmiris of this new generation have not lost the relevance of history. They do not need to read the Irish history and the plight of (…)

COMMUNICATION
In June Hindi journalism lost two stalwarts who were committed to justice, equality and communal harmony.
Rajkishore was widely known as one of the senior most columnists in Hindi who wrote very regularly for several leading newspapers and journals for several decades. He also edited several magazines from time to time. His commitment to equality and justice was steadfast. He was very firmly opposed to casteism. He tried to integrate the views of Ambedkar, Gandhi and Lohia (…)