2018

Sporting an upturned moustache, wearing jeans, shades, riding a horse to the wedding— and you face a roadblock of hatred. They say these are privileges you’re not supposed to enjoy.
You react: ‘the Holy Book’ teaches all are equal, every one having a right to live with dignity and honour! Why, then, is this discrimination, segregation from the main stream professed to be egalitarian?
They outreach, soothe your feelings, flaunting an ameliorating list of what has been done for your (…)

by Samit Kar
The recent Convocation in Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan was held on May 25 in the presence of Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina Wajed. The latter was present on the occasion of the inauguration of the Bangladesh Bhavan within the Visva-Bharati campus to mark the beginning of a new chapter in the glorious annals of 47 years of Indo-Bangladesh relationship. Bangla-desh, under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his daughter, Sheikh Hasina, had always been the (…)

By the 1950s when the developing countries started what the great Swedish economist, Professor Gunnar Myrdal, called the “Great Ascent from Grinding Poverty to a Prosperous Life”, Western economists in general—with the notable exceptions like Myrdal, Nobel Laureate US economist John Kenneth Galbraith, and another US Noble Prize-winning economist Josef Stiglitz (the person who went from being the Chief Economist of the World Bank for 10 long years to trenchent repudiator of the entire (…)

The following is a statement issued by Dr Anand Teltumbde, General Secretary, Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Maharashtra, on June 6, 2018.
The Pune Police at 6.00 am today, June 6, 2018, arrested Advocate Surendra Gadling, General Secretary, Indian Association of People’s Lawyers from Nagpur; Prof Shoma Sen, Head of the Department of English, Nagpur University; Sudhir Dhawale, Editor, Vidrohi, from Mumbai; Rona Wilson, Public Relations Secretary, Committee for the (…)

by M.M. Khajooria
The separatist trio—Geelani, Mirwaiz and Yasin Malik—have sprung bit of a surprise by announcing their willingness to negotiate with the Central Government. This significantly but not surprisingly coincides with the agreement between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan to “fully implement” the ceasefire pact of 2003 in “letter and spirit” forthwith to stop cross-border firings in Jammu and Kashmir. It may be noted that the Special (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by Aejaz Ahmad Wani
Left, Right and Centre: The Idea of India, edited by Nidhi Razdan; India, Penguin; Viking, Penguin Random House; year: 2017; pages: 269, Price: 599.
There has been much fuss about nationalism in India in the past few years. Catch phrases such as national/anti-national, anti-Hindu, anti-state, secularity, and intolerance have kept coming up in the public sphere. This is nothing but a contestation of the Idea of India, whether the Idea of India is (…)

EDITORIAL
It can be safely concluded that the result of the bypolls for several State Assemblies and Parliament (held on May 28) that have come out or are yet to be finally declared today have been a real thumbs-up for Opposition unity mainly for which reason the BJP, ruling at the Centre and in most States, has had to suffer severe reverses at the hustings this time.
The byelections took place on May 28 for four Lok Sabha seats (one in UP—Kairana, two in Maharashtra—Palghar and (…)

Four years ago, Narendra Damodardas Modi stormed into the national political arena with the slogan of Vikas.. Sabka saath sabka vikas was the catchy slogan that the people, especially the youth, believed in and catapulted Modi to the seat of the Chief Executive Officer of India Inc. Four years later, Vikas (Development) has receded almost invisibly into the background. It is Vibhed (Division) that has taken centre-stage.
It is the politics of polarisation, practised most brazenly, that has (…)

COMMUNICATION
Violence against people has become an organic part of the neo-liberal paradigm of governance in contemporary India. The recent state violence against anti-Vedanta protesters in Tamil Nadu is an exemplary case of such violence. The death toll in ‘police action’ against the protesters is reported to be 13 in number. We are yet to know how many people suffered injuries. The state onslaught against the people took place on the 100th day of protests against the Sterlite Copper (…)

In an amazing display of goodwill bus drivers of the Ryobi group in Okayama, Japan have staged a protest not by striking work but by continuing to drive, without charging fares from passengers. The Ryobi group is facing tough competition from another group, Megurin, which is offering reduced fares to passengers. The intended message is that the Ryobi drivers value the interest of passengers more than their own. This mode of protest is winning accolades from the people.
Protests, even if (…)