2018

This year’s Deepavali was chequered, Except you know where— Along the banks of a sacred river.
Whether the god descended or not Must be a matter of debate. Gods may be gods, but they have noses too; He may have found the pollution Too rich for his pulmonary flow. And gods do not like as much noise As their sponsoring humans do.
However muffled the crackers This November, it is to be doubted That the world here will end With a whimper rather than a bang. Eliot’s melancholy had a muted (…)

The 42nd Indian Social Science Congress (ISSC) was scheduled to be held in association with the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) between December 15-19, 2018, at Varanasi, with the focal theme of “Human Future in the Digital Era”. With the experience of 41 earlier events, it was planned with considerable advance spadework of organising programmes, sessions, etc., and inviting papers for its various sessions across multiple academic disciplines, involving several Indian universities. The (…)

by N. Sundaramurthy
LIC — IDBI Deal
The respective boards of the LIC and IDBI bank have approved the transfer of 51 per cent of the ailing bank’s shares to the LIC. Not lagging behind, the Insurance Regulator—IRDAI—has approved the deal. According to the IRDAI Act, the LIC cannot hold more than 15 per cent stake in a company. A primary question arises: how could the IRDAI breach its own rules? As on June 30, 2017, the LIC held 18.91 per cent stake in the Corporation Bank. (In the year (…)

TRIBUTE
Veteran writer and journalist Anees Chishti, who passed away in New Delhi after a brief illness on October 10, 2018 (just two days before his 77th birthday), was the biographer of our late President Dr Zakir Hussain. What is more, he covered the Bhopal gas tragedy which struck on December 3, 1984 and also wrote a book on the mishap, entitled Dateline Bhopal, a Newsman’s Diary of the Gas Disaster.
He was a theatre critic for the Shankar’s Weekly anda journalist with Seminar, (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Amidst the profusion of tributes paid to Indira Gandhi on the tenth anniversary of her martyrdom on October 31, perhaps the most eloquent but concise was by the eminent scientist-philosopher, Professor Yash Pal, who said she had made us feel proud of being an Indian.
To be proud of belonging to our motherland was the constant injunction that my generation had to abide by when we were young students—that was before the country became independent. The galling yoke of (…)

by S.R. Darapuri
Dr Ambedkar is said to be the father of Dalit politics because he was the first person to fight for the political rights of Dalits. He was the person who during the Round Table Conferences (1930-32), called in connection with the framing of future Constitution of India, got the Dalits (Depressed Classes) recognised as a minority distinct from the Hindus and got the right to separate electorate just like Muslims, Sikhs and Anglo-Indians. On the announcement of the “Communal (…)

by S.N. Sahu
It was on November 12, 1947 that Mahatma Gandhi was requested to broadcast on All India Radio an address to refugees from Pakistan facing trauma and suffering caused by the partition of India and were housed in a camp in Kurukshetra. It was his second live broadcast over the radio and the first and only live broadcast on All India Radio.
Since 2000 the date has been observed as Public Service Broadcasting Day, for which Suhas Borker deserves commendation for taking the (…)

MUSINGS
Madrasa children are the most vulnerable! The recent lynching of the eight-year-old child, Mohammad Azeem, staying and studying in a madrasa situated in the Begampur locality of South Delhi, should have been highlighted during television discussions and should have also figured high in the political circles but, alas, it did not! Nah, one did not see any of the Union Ministers or even Commission heads rushing to the madrasa site, to grasp the brutalities of the day where even (…)

by Abid Ahmad Shah
Peace is the foundation of prosperity among the nation-states of the world and harmony forms the basic foundation of that enterprise. Man is the wonderful creation of God with an inherent sense of metaphysical and worldly belongings. The savage societies of the pre-historic times without any order and hierarchy of social organisation subsequently in the long time-frame paved way for the foundations of nation-states and social organisations with a proper moral and social (…)

TRIBUTE
Girish Patel breathed his last on October 6, at the age of 86, in Ahmedabad. For several decades his name had been identified with almost any struggle, big and small, for justice in Gujarat. In his roles as an academic, human rights activist and lawyer, he always championed the cause of justice and help for the oppressed people. He studied at Harvard, was the Principal of one leading law college and Director of another. But he was all too willing to sacrifice the security and (…)