2019

by Santosh Kumar Biswal
Let the politicians use names for the media like bikau,presstitutes,matlab pliable journalists or information middlemen. Let them say that they will ‘bury the media ten feet under the earth’ or ‘will jail journalists’.
Politicians are indulging in campaign verbosity such as main bhi chowkidar or chowkidar chor hai. Accumulation of political chicanery is at its best form now. However, the role of the media in a democracy, especially at an electoral juncture, is (…)

by D.S. Nagabhushana
Another General Election for the Lok Sabha has come. The Narendra Modi Government of the BJP and its allies in the last five years have raised so many controversies and so much of ruckus that no other government in the past few decades has. The reason for this being that the Modi-led government has functioned very differently from all other non-Congress govern-ments, including that led by Vajpeyee. It has tried to steer the nation and discourse of Nationalism in a (…)

by T. Sadashivam and Shahla Tabassum
The upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2019 will be called as the first ‘Digital Election’, because half of our electorate is internet users; and out of which almost all of them are using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) including WhatsApp which is a messaging application. In this scenario, the biggest concern is how to prevent abuse or misuse of the social media and its influence in the election. In this regard, the Election Commission of (…)

by R.G. Gidadhubli
On April 4, 2019 the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) celebrated the historic occasion of the 70th anniversary of its existence in Washington, when Foreign Ministers of 29 member-states attended the function. US President Donald Trump and NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg addressed the delegates highlighting the achievements, issues and challenges facing the organisation. The NATO was formed on April 4, 1949 in Washington with 12 members of the USA and European states (…)

by Nilofar Suhrawardy
Not all countries have as many political parties as India has. Also, the dress attire of politicians of other countries is not as varied as is that of Indian politicians. Certainly, regional, religious, political as well as personal and other reasons need to be paid attention while considering the kind of dress worn by most politicians. The politicians would probably not have been so conscious of their attire as well as their facial expressions if they did not accord (…)

by Jayanta Kumar Ghosal
The following article is being published before Rabindranath Tagore’s 158th birth anniversary which falls on May 9, 2019.
This year being the sesquicentenary of Mohadas Karamchand Gandhi, it is important to have a focus on the two great personalities like Tagore and Gandhi. It is now very much pertinent to have an account of their relation-ship in a nutshell. Because it is really amazing to observe that India with her many back-wardness produced two such mighty (…)

Short Story
Sagar ki lehare
utthee hein, girti hein;
Baat beeti raat beeti,
Kehat lokvaasi,
abhi raat baaki.
It was a job and I was lucky to have one. My father had been a peasant and toiled for rupees five a day. Most days the zamindar gave him wheat with the chaff and chafed if my father pleaded with his hands folded,’Hazoor! Some cash...’
‘What for?’ he would scoff, the scorn curling his upper lip and invading the look in his eyes as he puffed at his hookah.
‘Gaihu is (…)

EDITORIAL
As we go to press, Varanasi is witnessing a mega road-show of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the temple town before the Ganga arati in the evening; the PM will file his nomination for the Lok Sabha polls from the city tomorrow morning. At the same time, as is the norm these days, during the road-show the media, mainly the electronic media, went out of its way to ridicule the Congress on the belated decision of party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra not to contest from (…)

On Easter Sunday (April 21, 2019) coordinated terror attacks in Sri Lanka, as many as eight in number over a few hours, have managed to leave behind more confusion than such incidents usually cause in their aftermath. Since no terrorist leaves behind his calling card after perpetrating his crime, such occasions always cause much groping around in the dark until tell-tale evidences are collected and analysed and interrogations of suspects held and then, finally, individuals or organisations (…)

A senior Sri Lankan Minister suggested to The Guardian that the coordinated bomb attacks on Easter Sunday on churches and five-star resorts on the main drag of Colombo and targets outside the capital could have been the work of terrorists or religious extremists. Meanwhile, an unattributed remark by a purported police official in Colombo is also floating around, lapped up by many Indian newspapers—and duly embellished—that a Muslim jihadist group is behind the attack.
Fingers have been (…)