2020

* Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Dec 19, 2020 | The Editors
* Bangladesh: Looking back at its Liberation Struggle in 1971 | Sumit Chakravartty
* Tagore’s Work and Vision under Peril: Protect Visva-Bharati | Aurobindo Ghose

Letter to the Readers – Mainstream, Dec 19 2020
The Modi government has a huge majority in Parliament and exercises near-total dominance in India’s political sphere. This has made them a little drunk on power and they have come to believe that they can steamroll legislation without consulting people. It is over three weeks that tens of thousands of protesting farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are sitting on highways on the borders of Delhi. They have faced all kinds (…)

As many as forty-nine years have passed since December 16, 1971, resulting in the transformation of South Asia with the independence of a new nation called Bangladesh. This was a momentous development which led to the end of the pernicious two-nation theory that caused enormous damage to the polity which emerged after the independence of our subcontinent from alien imperialist rule in August 1947. The emergence of Bangladesh in December 1971 changed the whole complexion of South Asia. Since (…)

In 1940, a year before he died, Rabindranath Tagore placed a letter in Mahatma Gandhi’s hand. The letter said: "Visva-Bharati is like a vessel which is carrying the cargo of my life’s best treasure, and I hope it may claim special care from my countrymen for its preservation”.
A century after being founded in 1921, Tagore’s life’s treasure - the Visva-Bharati University - may now be in peril. Far from being preserved, that vessel - which will have its centenary celebration this December - (…)

Jayashree Dasgupta, popularly known as Jaya, was a silent political activist throughout her life.
Jaya, born on August 15, 1939, belonged to a truly nationalist family, her father, Nirmalendu Mukherjee, being a well known Congress leader in West Bengal. In the humble setting of her home, a photo of Gandhiji used to hang on the wall.
Entering Ashutosh College, South Kolkata in the mid-fifties, she was soon drawn into Left politics and became an active member of the Bengal Provincial (…)

by Gyan Pathak
December 10, 2020
India runs an unprecedented biological risk, but we are not prepared to successfully deal with. Coronavirus pandemic is a wake-up call, but the government is too slow to reform and invest satisfactorily in health and biotechnology sector. It leaves the country too vulnerable to dangers.
India faces three major biological threats: first, diseases caused by natural mutation in humans, plants, and animals; second, infections arising from human accidents; (…)

by Prof Radhakanta Barik*
Bhabani Nayak teaching in England raises a critical point regarding the Hindutva project in Odisha. Odisha has two Ms which attract the Hindutva politics. Marwaris, Mining jointly work here to propagate the ideas of Hindutva politics. In mid-1970s they built Ram Temple in the capital for propagating the ideas of Hindutva. Today they are offering money for building the Hanuman temples. For a decade they started organizing the reciting the Hanuman Chautisha in the (…)

by Sukla Sen
Introduction
In the just concluded Bihar assembly poll [2020], which had been expected to be a cakewalk for the ruling NDA [1] — despite the erstwhile third major partner quitting [2]
However, the last moment — rather post-poll, saw anticipation of a victory for its main rival — Mahagathbandhan (MGB) [3], led by Tejashwi Yadav, the younger son of once too formidable, now in jail, Lalu Prasad Yadav — at the head of the, regional, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), founded by his (…)

by Chittarvu Raghu
The Governor of Uttar Pradesh has promulgated an ordinance called as ‘The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020’. It has been promulgated to provide for the prohibition of unlawful conversion from one religion to another by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage and for the matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
The emphasis is on the prohibition of (…)

More than a year has passed since the BJP-led Government of India abrogated Article 370 on August 5, 2019, and the State of Jammu and Kashmir lost its relative autonomy granted in the Constitution of India. The erstwhile State was converted into two Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The fundamental question rarely asked in the mainstream media is how administrative restructuring of the State affected everyday life of the people in the Kashmir Valley.
Ayjaz Wani of the (…)