2018

by Prem Singh
The cry seeking justice for Asifa is becoming stronger and deeper. From Delhi to the United Nations, from social and civil rights organisations to civil society citizens, more and more people are out on the streets shouting slogans and demanding justice for Asifa. The social media is parading her pictures, right from happier times to the horrifying end; protesters unfurl their respective banners and flags, and suggest varying degrees of punishment. From Kathua to Delhi, and (…)

The Pakistan Supreme Court’s verdict to debar former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from holding any public office for life is too harsh punishment and mired in controversy. The court can hold him guilty, but it is up to Pakistan’s Parliament, including the Senate, to punish him. That is the reason why there has been a protest from Members of Parliament, most notably from his Muslim League party.
Nawaz Sharif was disqualified in July after a probe ordered by the Supreme Court on the Panama (…)

What happened in the Rasana village of Kathua district in Jammu is an unimaginable tale of savagery. An eight-year old girl belonging to the Bakkarwal community, a nomadic Muslim community, was first gang-raped and then brutally killed.
The Bakkarwal community, who survive on grazing sheep, goats and horses, migrate with their flock to Kashmir and Ladakh in the summer and to Jammu in the winter, camping at forest sites they have used for centuries. Recent evictions have reportedly made the (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Why should life get so degenerate so often in our country? See the multiplying rape cases, each more brutal than the other. Why should party leaders talk like party leaders and not like human beings when human issues come up? Comments on the Kathua rape horror were an indiscretion, said the BJP’s buddhijeevi, Ram Madhav. Why should election advertisements assume that the citizen is an ass? One that asks Karnataka voters to support the BJP “for a corruption-free State” carried (…)

by Arun Srivastava
The RSS might have the magical wand to solve the problems of Hindutva and evolve the mechanism for ushering India into the Hindu Rashtra, but it utterly lacks the vision for uniting the Dalits and take them out of the nightmare of the isolationist politics being practised by it and its political mouth organ BJP.
From luring and poaching the so-called Dalit leaders from other political parties to worshipping local Dalit deities, the Sangh resorted to all kinds of (…)

A question creeping from within:
Babasaheb, what you’ve come to be?
Still a messiah for the downtrodden
or just a symbol appropriated
only for narrow electoral gains?
Your statue being built, demolished,
re-erected, painted, re-painted
in opposing colours, now guarded
within an iron enclosure, sends out
a message scripted in different ink.
This may be the outer manifestation.
But deep churning lies inside
the voice you gave to the oppressed.
It rises above, (…)

by Samit Kar
Recently, Narendra Modi reiterated his government’s commitment to double the income of the Indian farmers at a national conference held in New Delhi. He stressed on the imperative to implement a four-pronged strategy regarding: 1. Reducing cultivation costs, 2. Ensuring profitable prices, 3. Processing of farm waste, and 4. Creating non-farm source of income.
Earlier, the Prime Minister formed a high-powered Committee on April 13, 2016 under the Chairmanship of Ashok Dalwai, (…)

by Aparupa Bhattacherjee and Sourina Bej
Bangladesh is gearing up for its general election in December, this year. With its two main political parties—the BNP and AL (Awami League) led by Begum Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina respectively hedging against each other—the election will be decisive in determining the future of bi-party politics in the country along with shaping the roadmap for Bangladesh in the region. After holding power for two consecutive terms an anti-incumbency wave could (…)

MUSINGS
How can the BJP-RSS indulge in the unthinkable—that is, defend the rapist beasts involved in the Kathua rape! In fact, the spokespersons of the BJP even tried distracting the viewers’ attention on the small screen by talking non-stop of the several other rapes reported from the other sectors of the country. A rape is a rape. The tragedy compounds when communal politics holds sway. We are turning vultures; pulling out children from their home terrain, raping and killing them, (…)

The honourable Chairman of the Rajya Sabha has ab initio rejected the motion for removal of the Chief Justice of India, signed by sixtyfour Members of Parliament.
One Member, namely, the reputed Senior Advocate, Kapil Sibal, has contended that in acting as a quasi-judicial persona, the honou-rable Chairman has engaged in an “illegal” determination on the petition. Mr Sibal’s argument is that the grounds for rejection do not stand the test of the provisions of Article 124, insofar as the (…)