2019

by Prem Singh
The modern industrial civilisation has witnessed two World Wars. The researchers of war have yet not been able to estimate the magnitude of casualties/deaths—both military and civilian—which occurred in these two World Wars. The estimated figure of people killed in both World Wars is between 10 to 15 crores. World Wars I and II were preceded and succeeded by many major battles. Wars of independence were invariably fought by all the colonised countries. Even the Cold War, that (…)

What is so special in the news item:
an organ being donated?
A flourishing black market offers
a choice to know the donor,
preserve purity of body and soul!
But the headline is eye-catching:
a Muslim donates one kidney
for his poor, ailing Hindu friend.
Eyebrows are half-raised;
discordant notes are voiced.
A body part from another faith
saves the donee; he breathes life.
A nagging question: what will be
his identity donned in the new robe?
It is abiding, binding, shared (…)

In his time Jesus of Nazareth was an oppositional figure, hounded by both the priesthood and the Roman overlords. So, when he gathered his choice followers to a Last Supper, at which he washed their feet and shared his body and blood with them, he told them that their path would be full of thorns and suffering. Although none greater than his own crucifixion on behalf of the meek and the powerless.
Narendra Modi’s replication of the washing of indigent feet at Prayag Raj recently was of (…)

BINOY VISWAM
We are passing through a very crucial period in the history of our country. The political battle for which we are gearing up is to determine the destiny of our nation. The formations and strategy of the battle are being finalised by various forces depending upon different factors. Political developments are taking place in a swift manner. The Left and democratic forces understand the complexity of the political conditions. The questions they pose before the nation are also (…)

The government should welcome Islamabad’s move to ban militant outfits designated by the UN Security Council as a step in the right direction. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain by making a gesture. But a leap of faith is needed.
Pakistan is crossing the Rubicon. Even if it is only acting under compulsion to conform to the standards set by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, which has included Pakistan in its ‘grey list’, the Pakistani move overlaps certain templates (…)

TRIBUTE
by ApoorvAnand
A critic is never the central figure in literature but Namvar Singh remained the first citizen of the world of Hindi, in all its aspects for more than sixty years. It amazes one to think that a critic attracted so much attention and also affection of the writers and readers as well for such a long time. He was awe-inspiring but his partiality for the new voices was too apparent. Many of them remember fondly his phone calls or post cards after he had read something (…)

by Gautam Sen
Jamal Ahmed Khashoggi, a journalist of the Washington Post newspaper of the USA, was brutally and in a unique diabolical manner, put to death on October 2, 2018 when he went to obtain documents connected with his proposed marriage with his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cenghiz. The incident occurred inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, and was executed by a hit squad of the Saudi Government headed by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBD), specially sent to Istanbul to (…)

by Saumitra Mohan
Prison administration is an inalienable part of our justice delivery system which, many feel, calls for urgent relook and attention. The prison administration in India has existed almost unchanged since its inception though a nomenclatural change has been effected in the meanwhile. Our prisons are no longer called ‘jails’ and have been christened as correctional homes today in keeping with the changed ethos.
Even though the prison infrastructures have improved (…)

by Navneet Sharma and Anamica
“The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.”
—Bertrand Russell
The year 2019 arrived with a thud. The highly branded “invincibility” of the concordant couple at the helm bit the dust in electoral politics in the Hindi heartland. The land beneath their feet had slipped and (…)

Introduction
The anthropological method did not exist the way we know today almost a century back. It was established through prolonged field data collection, as was established by Malinowski in the study of the Trobriand Islands in the Western Pacific. Almost a similar trend was followed through by Radcliffe Brown in the study of the Andaman Islands. The method entailed prolonged interaction between the researcher and the studied community—better known as the ‘Participant Observer’ method (…)