2019

EDITORIAL
As the Karnataka drama continues and there are as yet no visible signs of it coming to an immediate end since the State Assembly Speaker has not indicated that even after 10 MLAs of the ruling coalition having met him today and resubmitted their resignation from the legislature he would accept those any time soon, the prospects of an early solution to the crisis appears to be remote at the moment. The possibilities of the Kumaraswamy Government resigning at this hour also appears (…)

The government was expected to present a big-bang Budget since it has a massive majority in Parliament. It was hoped that the Budget would help take the economy out of its current troubles. Soon after returning to power the government and the PM have repeatedly talked of the Indian GDP reaching $ 5 trillion in the next five years. This hinted at bold steps being taken. Of course in due time, the economy would become a $ 5 trillion economy but the issue is whether from the current level of $ (…)

by A. Sunil Dharan
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has presented her maiden Budget under conditions that are extremely trying for the economy. Economic growth has slumped from 8.2 per cent in 2016-17 to 6.8 per cent in 2108-19. It was 5.8 per cent in the last quarter of 2018-19. The investment-GDP ratio, which had reached a peak of 35.6 per cent in 2007, has been coming down since then. It was 26.4 per cent in 2017. Private consumption expenditure, that had kept the GDP growth rate (…)

by Ram Puniyani
A debate is raging about a Bill on triple talaaq introduced by the Modi 2.0 government in Parliament in June 2019. Probably this first major effort by this government is based on the argument of giving gender justice to ‘Muslim sisters’. The Modi 1.0 government had introduced a similar Bill, but it could not become implementable as despite being passed in the Lok Sabha, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could not get it passed in the Rajya Sabha, where it did not have (…)

MUSINGS
There was something or everything so very extraordinarily different to Khushwant Singh that even after five years of his passing away he holds sway. At the recently concluded Khushwant Singh Literary Festival at King’s College, London, it got more than apparent that the man’s views and viewpoints were of great significance. Perhaps it wouldn’t be amiss to state that he was far ahead of his times. And, yes, definitely farsighted.
More than a decade back he’d realised the dark, (…)

by Zulafqar Ahmed
India has been an epitome of pluralism, tolerance, and diversity since the ages. The religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity of India has left inerasable imprints all over the world. Varieties of social groups and ideological differences among the communities could not shake the unity of India. India was imagined by Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Patel, Azad, Ashfa-qullah, and Bhagat Singh as a country where love ruled over hatred, mutual-coexistence ruled over exclusion. (…)

DOCUMENT
“Citizenship is man’s basic right for it is nothing less than the right to have rights. Remove this priceless possession and there remains a stateless person, disgraced and degraded in the eyes of his countrymen,” once said Earl Warren, a prominent jurist. His words rightly sum up the fate of millions of residents in Assam whose names are excluded from the draft list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the others who are in the detention camps in Assam declared as (…)

Barely a month after the publication of results of the parliamentary elections, a draconian act of lynching took place in the Maldah district of West Bengal. A Muslim youth, who was beaten up by “few of his acquaintances” on June 26, 2019, died of his injuries later. Reportedly, Sanaullah Sheikh, in his early twenties, was called to Baishnabnagar market, about a kilometre from his village. It is reported in The Hindu (quoting an official source): “He was asked to start a bike so that he (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Hindutva’s Second Coming by Subhas Gatade; published by Media House, Delhi; 2019; pages: 272; Rs 395 (US $ 18).
The return of Modi to power with a huge margin in this 2019 election is a clear verdict for the Hindutva plank. Why and how it happened leave us, the secular billions, to ponder about the reality and its aftermath. And at that juncture Subhas Gatade’s 272-page analysis titled ‘Hindutva’s Second Coming’ gives us something concrete to think over once again. This (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Hindutva’s Second Coming by Subhas Gatade; published by Media House, Delhi; 2019; pages: 272; Rs 395 (US $ 18).
The return of Modi to power with a huge margin in this 2019 election is a clear verdict for the Hindutva plank. Why and how it happened leave us, the secular billions, to ponder about the reality and its aftermath. And at that juncture Subhas Gatade’s 272-page analysis titled ‘Hindutva’s Second Coming’ gives us something concrete to think over once again. This (…)