2018

MUSINGS
As the tragic news comes in of 39 of our men killed in the Iraqi township of Mosul, allegedly by the ISIS, one sits back shaken. There are too many disasters and human tragedies taking place in the Middle East—barbaric killings, car explosions, bombs strapped on the alive forms of teenagers, homes targeted, buildings bombarded, entire settlements razed to the ground, dying children, deaths and destructions as never before.
One has been left wondering—who set up the ISIS? Who is (…)

Rahul Gandhi is the new star on the Congress firmament. His mother, Sonia Gandhi, has passed on the baton to him and he is the party President. Rahul is the great grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru. Thus the office of the Prime Minister, if and when the party is voted to power, remains with the dynasty. It has, naturally, given a sense of unity, important for a country of division and diversity.
Rahul Gandhi is not that young. At 48, he is the youngest President of the Congress so far. Whether (…)

by Irfan Engineer
The recent anti-Muslim riots in Kandy, Sri Lanka, once again demonstrate that religion is becoming more salient in the public domain, including politics, in South Asia. My recent visit to Sri Lanka and talking to a cross-section of people from different religions, including some people in the government, underscored this fact.
Anti-Muslim riots were witnessed in Ampara town in the Eastern Province on February 26 and in Teddeniya and Udispattuwa in Kandy district from (…)

Only 18 months separated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Vietnam (September 2-3, 2016) and Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang’s visitto India (March 2-4, 2018). But the regional setting of the two countries’ so-called Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has phenomenally changed in this period. The power dynamic in the Asia-Pacific reflects the unraveling of the Obama administration’s ‘pivot’ strategy following President Donald Trump’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (…)

by Javid Ahmad Ahanger and Mudasir Ahmad Qazi
Thomas Jefferson, the founding father of the United States of America, once said: “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” Jefferson’s prophetic words identified the atrophy of governments when they cross a limit. This becomes relevant in the context of Jammu and Kashmir which is going through a tumultuous phase. There is complete anarchy in the State, although (…)

TRIBUTE
Dr Ajit Mozoomdar, 94, who breathed his last in New Delhi’s Apollo Hospital on February 12, 2018, was a brilliant academic. A distinguished economist, he joined the IAAS in 1946 and was an eminent member of the Indian Administrative Service. He served in top positions in the Government of India’s Ministry of Finance and Planning Commission. He retired as the Secretary of the Planning Commission. Subsequently he was the Executive Director of the Asian Development Bank and also (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Governmental non-performance in Kerala and electoral devastation in Tripura gave the CPM its unfinest hour in history. Just then the imaginative leadership of the All India Kisan Sabha miraculously pushed it into its finest hour; the Nasik-Mumbai Long March of some 50,000 farmers marked a milestone in the political annals of the country. The lesson is obvious: the CPM as presently constituted and led has become irrelevant, but so many people are oppressed that a well-conceived (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
A situation of unprecedented confusion synchronising with the onset of serious crisis for the entire constitutional structure of the Indian state presents before the nation today.
On the one side is the outright challenge of the BJP, the most aggressive of political parties, threatening to defy the entire administration in a manner never seen before; and on the other, the ruling party at the Centre presents a picture of utter disunity with factions not only (…)

by Shiladitya Chakraborty
The concept of adultery is as old as the institution of marriage. Adultery as a form of social deviance has been universally condemned since time immemorial. It has been condemned by all major religions of the world, though with varying degrees of severity. In the West, it is found in the Code of Hammurabi, the Holy Bible or the Holy Quran. As far as India is concerned, one finds detailed sanctions against adultery in religious texts of ancient India like the (…)

by Rushda Siddiqui
On March 23, 2018, thousands of students of the JNU, supported by students and teachers from a range of other universities, marched across the city seeking justice in a democratic India. On March 23, the scribes covering the event, students, teachers and supporters, were stopped, beaten and humiliated at the centre of the city. This was not the first time that a protest movement was halted and forcibly dispersed. Protest marches are not new to democracy. Protestors are (…)