2019

by Partha S. Ghosh
Ever since the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 (9/11), Muslims all over the world are ‘under siege’. That’s how the Pakistani-American sociologist, Akbar Ahmed, titled his book Islam Under Siege (2003). He could see how the tide of Islamophobia soon gripped the United States. Muslim charities were shut down, veiled women were humiliated, and commentators on Fox TV paralleled the Quran with Hitler’s Mein Kampf. (…)

The following article came out in Countercurrents on January 27, 2018. In view of its importance today it is being reproduced here for the benefit of our readers.
The BJP last year observed September 17 as the ‘Liberation of Hyderabad Day’, celebrating the Indian Government’s ‘police action’ (a euphemism for what was actually a military invasion) in 1948, which led to the integration of the Nizam’s princely state into the Indian Union. It claims that its political ancestors (members of the (…)

The art of flattery, contrary to what one might think, is a complicated affair. If it is too straightforward, it runs the risk of appearing artificial, especially when the flatterer contrives to combine strict truth of fact with a vast atmosphere of awe and mystery.
The eulogy that President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi lavished on each other at the Howdy Modi event in Houston on Sunday was entirely improbable. The Oriental hyperbole served one purpose, though. They were (…)

by L.K. Sharma
Two events held on the same day confused India-watchers. At Howdy Modi, a gigantic political extravaganza in Houston, more than 50,000 Am-Indians kept cheering Prime Minister Modi and US President Trump. India appeared like a superpower strutting on the global stage! Modi sold an America-sized India!
The India that got projected in a meeting in Bangalore appeared afflicted with social degradation, faux nationalism, mob lynching, rising religious intolerance and falling (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
In 1967, that is, fiftytwo years ago, N.C. visited the Kashmir Valley for a few days and held detailed discussions with a wide cross-section of opinion-makers and political personalities of all shades there. On his return he wrote a series of pieces on Kashmir in Mainstream. The following is the first instalment of the series ‘Special Report on Kashmir’ and was published in this journal’s September 30, 1967 issue. It is being reproduced now that Kashmir is in the news (…)

by Sambit Roychowdhury
Writing on the Chandrayaan-2, the space mission, the nation’s imagination is aflame with several excellent articles on the mission having already appeared in both the national as well as international media. Besides that my own area of research and expertise is far removed from the technical or scientific aspects of space missions, myself being basically a scientist. Apparently I have little to add to what has already been said about Chandrayaan-2. But the sayings (…)

IMPRESSIONS
When you are a downside-up man condemned to horizontality in bed, you start imagining that the world is plotting against you. A butterfly on the window or an itch on the left hand are seen as messages meant for you. Across cultures, the butterfly is a symbol of hope indicating good days ahead, while a left-hand itch is a pointer to impending loss of money. (If it’s the right hand, you gain money.) All that is fine, but why should a man, just because he is tied to a bed, be (…)

BOOK REVIEW
The Bhagat Singh Reader byChaman Lal (ed);Noida: Harper Collins;2019; pp. 616; Rs 799.
On September 28, 2019 we are celebrating the 112th birth anniversary of gallant revolu-tionary Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh character-ised the true Indian spirit of honour and sacrifice. He had the valour not only to dream of India’s independence from foreign rule but also fearlessly fight for it. Bhagat Singh, alongwith his small group of revolutionaries, took on the British colonial empire (…)

Would you be free of the tyranny
Wrought by the benevolent?
Learn to turn your resolute back
On words of sweet intent.
Ask the insistent benefactor
What he has up his sleeve;
Keep a steady frown in place,
Let him squirm and grieve.
And, if he is too long with his rant,
Tell him to cut the slack;
Lead him to an unsmiling truth
About his latest tack.
Keep your trust in abeyance,
And your skepticism to the fore;
Should his appeal go below the belt,
Sock him you (…)

EDITORIAL
Today is September 19, 2019. Precisely 46 days ago the Government of India had abrogated the Articles 370 and 35A of our Constitution thereby divesting Kashmir of its special status in the Indian Union. Yesterday PM Narendra Modi, in a speech at a rally at the site of the Statue of Unity (dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel) in Gujarat’s Kevadia Colony, declared:
Today, India is trying to complete all the tasks that have remained incomplete since independence. For 70 years, (…)