2019

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
An element of uncertainty hovers over the country as one writes these lines. A week has passed since the horrific terror strike in Pulwama, J&K. That happened on February 14. Today is February 21. The entire country stood by the Union Government soon after the terror attack, the worst in the border State that resulted in the deaths of as many as 40 CRPF jawans. Today on the seventh day after the attack the Opposition parties have come out with probing questions on (…)

The following is the statement issued by the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) on the February 14, 2019 terror attack at Pulwama, J&K. The statement was in the form of a press release issued on February 15, 2019.
‘How many Deaths will it take till we know
That too many people have died?’
The PIPFPD is shocked and saddened by the loss of lives of 44 CRPF personnel in a militant attack in Lethapora, Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir. The gruesome manner in (…)

The February 14 Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM)-sponsored suicide car-bomb carnage on the CRPF convoy, with loss of over 40 lives and as many injured, is doubtless condemnable. But apart from the personal tragedies and confusion following the carnage, there are important matters to be addressed.
TRP versus Hard Facts
The electronic media broke the news with attempts to lay the blame on some slip-up at some level of some organisation. TV anchors interviewed “experts”—this writer was one (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
Kashmir today has become the touchstone of Indian statesmanship. The crisis that has emerged there can no longer be managed by conventional methods of settling political acrimony. It has gone much beyond, and now it has assumed the magnitude of a definite threat to the integrity of the country.
The militants who want Kashmir to secede from the Indian Union are today in control of life and politics—at least in the Valley itself. It is time the public in this country (…)

by Aijaz Ahmad Turrey
On Thursday, February 14, 2019, a CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) convoy, moving from Jammu to Srinagar, was for the first time attacked by a suicide bomber with an explosive-laden vehicle near Avantipora, Pulwama, Kashmir. The attack resulted in the death of 40 CRPF personnel. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Pakistan-based Islamist militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammed. The attack has been condemned by every individual and community living in the (…)

I went to participate in a candle-light homage-paying event at Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s statue organised by about 200 Dalit students on the Hazratganj main crossing in Lucknow on February 16, 2019 evening, two days after the dastardly terrorist act in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 40 Central Reserve Police Forces’ personnel were killed. While the condolence meeting by Dalit students was sombre with no slogans being raised, at the neighbouring Mahatma Gandhi statue, much smaller nationalist (…)

by Anup K. Sinha
Budgets in India have recently become a mega event where the ruling government makes many announcements which are sensu stricto not related to the Budget at all. However, this year’s Union Budget presented by Piyush Goyal was arguably the most political in content and most arrogant in style in recent times. It was expected to be a low key, vote-on-account Budget by a lame-duck government, where routine, essential expenditures would be passed in Parliament. Days before the (…)

There is a rather thoughtless middle-class view that a scam is not a scam until there is a money trail that leads to some personal account or pocket.
Take two instances from recent American political history: in the infamous Watergate case, the crime committed was not related to pecuniary transaction from which the then President, Richard Nixon, benefited. The culpability pertained to a systemic subversion: Nixon had colluded in the bugging of the Democratic Convention.
Nixon had to go. (…)

by S.P. Shukla, Jaya Mehta, Vineet Tiwari
This article was written quite some time ago before the ‘Delhi Chalo’ movement of farmers in December 2018. In the introduction of the article the authors explained:
“We wish to present this paper for the consideration of and interaction with peasants, activists, scholars and indeed the entire ‘Nation For Farmers’ which is being mobilised as part of the magnificent Delhi Chalo Movement of Farmers.
“We have been engaged, for more than a decade (…)

by Ram Puniyani
The scene of violence in the name of emotive issues has been continuously throwing new patterns of instigating and orchestrating violence. In recent times we saw major violence following the demolition of the Babri mosque (1992), Godhra train burning (Gujarat carnage 2002), murder of a Swami (Kandhamal 2008), on the pretext of love-Jihad (Muzaffarnagar 2013) among others. The gross pattern seems to be to spread hatred against sections of society and unleash the hate, which (…)