2019

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 second instalment of the series ‘Special Report on Kashmir’ and was published in this journal’s October 21, 1967 issue. It is being reproducecd now that Kashmir is in the news (…)

by Ashok Celly
It seems Indian men have lost the capacity to be creative, that is, to do original thinking, to throw fresh ideas, to think out of the box. During the last few decades no fresh or original idea seems to have come from Indian men. One cannot think of any original or creative mind after JP. By comparison women like Medha Patkar, Aruna Roy, Sunita Narain, Mahashweta Devi etc. have broken fresh ground in their respective fields.
Maybe since men have been the top dog, the (…)

The recent pronouncement by Amit Shah, the Home Minister of India, to impose Hindi as the official state language generated immense heartsore in many parts of the country, mostly the littoral States. It appears that Mr Shah is either ignorant about the genesis of the formation of the Indian nation-state or is oblivious of the basis of formation of nation- states all over the world. In such cases the official state language is the one brought to use by the ethnically predominant (…)

by Prem Singh
Yesterday (October 1, 2019) I had the opportunity to share a car ride with Virendra Kumar Barnwal who is the author of Hind Swaraj: Nav-Sabhyata Vimarsh. We both were en route to the South Campus of Delhi University where he was invited to address the audience on the topic ‘Gandhi and Literature’. On the way the discussion inter-alia turned towards the Jewar International Airport. Barnwalji proposed the renaming of the airport after the Mahatma to commemorate his 150th birth (…)

September 20, 2019, saw the highest rise in the Indian stock market in a decade because the government announced a big tax cut for the corporate sector in India. This was a clear response to the flood of bad news about the declining Indian economy. This was the seventh policy announcement since August 23rd. The first six of them hardly had an impact on sentiments or the stock markets and bad news continued to pour in. So, the government decided to make the seventh one a mega announcement, to (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Nibandha Chalachchitra by Iqbal Karim Hasnu; published by Aninda Rahman on behalf of Curious Dhaka, Dhaka; 2018; pp. 152; 300 Taka.
This slender book entitled Nibandha Chalach-chitra (Essays on Films) is a collection of Bengali essays on cinema by Iqbal Karim Hasnu, a Canada-based Bangladeshi writer who had been bringing out a bilingual magazine called Bangla Journal from Toronto for the last several years, with the aim of bringing together members of both the Bengali (…)

MUSINGS
From this October 2, let us try and speak the truth and also try and hear only the truth. After all, Mahatma Gandhi’s biggest weapon was his strength to speak only and only the truth. Armed with that, he disarmed even heavily-armed armies.
Alas, today’s rulers are lacing their speeches with distractions or else with bogus assurances. Where is that truth that one’s craving to hear? Where is that mention of the existing ground- realities? Where is that development and that ‘all’s (…)

by Neha Chauhan
The General elections of 2019 would be remembered for many things, one of them being that India recorded a voter turnout of 67 per cent, the highest ever in the history of the country’s democracy. Voter turnout in India has remained perpetually low. Low voter turnout is often defended on the ground that it serves as a barometer reflecting voters’ disaffection or discontentment with the level of prevalent politics. But what are often not accounted for by the apologists of (…)

by M.M. Khajooria
Prominent Muslim leaders like Ali Shah Geelani and his Jamaat-i-Islami colleagues solemnly take oath in the name of Allah “to preserve and protect the integrity of India” at the time of filing nomination papers for election to the State Assembly as well as while entering the legislature after winning the election. They also draw pension from government treasuries. And still they profess to be not Indian citizens. When questioned about this contradiction they shamelessly (…)

From October 2 to October 4 there was a very colourful gathering of people from several nations in Delhi. This was part of the inauguration and preparation for a global peace initiative in the form of a march from Delhi to Geneva. This march, which started on October 4, will continue for almost a year and will end in Geneva on September 26, 2020, World Peace Day. While the core group of marchers consists of 50 women and men from various parts of world, supporting meetings and initiatives (…)