2018

by Kunal Ghosh
Our Constitution-makers decided to follow the western model of parliamentary democracy in which there are three main organs of the state, the executive (that is, the government run by a Council of Ministers) and the legislature (that is, the Parliament) and the judiciary (that is, the system of courts headed by the Supreme Court). Their powers are separated and they are independent of each other. However, this independence is not absolute; it is subject to the “checks and (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s 157th birth anniversary was observed last Wednesday (May 9, 2018). On this occasion we are reproducing a piece by N.C. on Tagore written 77 years ago, in 1941. It was published in The Calcutta Municipal Gazette—Tagore Memorial Special Supplement, September 13, 1941 (that appeared after the Poet’s death on August 7, 1941). This piece was carried under the pseudonym Vanguard. Though written during World War II when the global scenario was (…)

Dr Ambedkar Mahasabha honoured the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with Dalit Mitra or Friend of the Dalit award on the birth anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, April 14, 2018 in Lucknow.
This is the same government which had arrested Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, the founder of Bhim Army which runs over 300 education centres for Dalit children in Saharanpur. On November 2, 2017 the High Court described the four cases against Ravan and his colleague Kamal Walia as politically (…)

On the occasion of Rabindranath Tagore‘s 157th birth anniversary on May 9, 2018, we are carrying excerpts from Tagore’s writings and speeches that are relevant in today’s context.
Today, more than ever before in our history, the aid of spiritual power is needed. Therefore, I believe its resources will surely be discovered in the hidden depths of our being. Pioneers will come to take up this adventure and suffer, and through suffering open out a path to that higher elevation of life in (…)

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
Beyond the hype, the hoopla and the high-voltage publicity, what is the tangible outcome of the ‘Informal Summit’ between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, held on April 27 and 28? Nobody knows because except for the two interpreters taking detailed notes of their informal talks, there was none present at the one-to-one meeting. What the officials of the two sides told the media after the summit was based on the briefing given to them by the two (…)

Sino-Indian relations have been marked by Chinese perfidy since the time we attained political independence in 1947 and the so-called Chinese “liberation” in 1949. Barely had the Chinese achieved political freedom that they attacked and annexed the whole of Tibet in 1950.
From the very beginning of our political relations, Jawaharlal Nehru went out of his way to befriend the Chinese. When the UN Security Council was set up in 1948, Nehru had urged, indeed argued with, the Western powers (…)

[May 1 this year was on Tuesday last. While observing May Day we recount the following words. Though written 85 years ago, they remain as fresh as ever even today.]
One morning you will wake and find Suddenly into the sky has climbed The wonderful unheard-of day The never-ending First of May.
Charles Madge (Cambridge Left, 1933)

It’s sheer arrogance. True, Chief Justice Dipak Misra denied permission to Allahabad High Court judge Nayaran Shukla to prosecute a Lucknow-based Prasad Education Trust, which runs a medical college. But this is not such a violation of law which should invite impeachment of the Chief Justice of India.
The Congress Party was divided but since its President, Rahul Gandhi, decided to move against the Chief Justice, even the balanced Kapil Sibal had to fall in line. Ashwini Kumar, another (…)

The ugly truth, suspected for long, is out in the open now: the BJP wants a subservient judiciary. The litany of objections raised by Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to the appointment of Justice K.M. Joseph as a Supreme Court judge is as flimsy and faulty as an objection can be. Justice Joseph, now the Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, struck down the Centre’s decision to dismiss the Congress Government of Uttarakhand by imposing President’s Rule. His name, along with that (…)

Some recent developments in the domain of the Indian judiciary give alarming signals. In January 2018, four senior judges of the Supreme Court alleged: There have been instances where case having far-reaching consequences for the nation and the institution had been assigned by the Chief Justice of this Court selectively to the benches “of their preference” without any rational basis for such assignment.
The situation has become more complicated after the above allegation was carried in the (…)