2020

MUSINGS
Why arrest only the foot soldiers, when the actual masterminds sit untouched. The Hindutva rulers who insist on heaping provocative, threatening, communal, gutter-abusive taunts! They are part and parcel of the political machinery!
Yes, today it’s the likes of Anurag Thakurs, Kapil Mishras, Parvesh Vermas. Yesterday there were many more — mind you, none of them even bothering to somewhat camouflage or conceal their hate for the ‘other’. All out in the open!
At the very start of (…)

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
Sometimes it becomes necessary to call a spade a spade, shorn of euphemism. The BJP is pushing the country to a civil war. For the first time since independence the country has seen such provocative and vituperative communal propaganda in the name of election campaigning. It was a no-holds-barred vile, vicious and vitriolic attack, inciting people to shoot the BJP’s political opponents who do not accept the party’s definition of patriotism and nationalism. And this on (…)

The Union Budget has two goals. First, to tackle the current problems plaguing the economy which may be a continuing one or one that has cropped up in the year in which the Budget is drafted. The second goal of a Budget is to try to fulfill the vision that the government puts out. This again could be pertaining to the immediate goal for the coming year or for a longer term. In the present case, the problem has been that the economy has slowed down or, as this author has been arguing, it has (…)

by Saumen Chattopadhyay
The Economic Survey 2019-20 (ES) which was tabled in Parliament the day before the Union Budget for 2020-21 was presented on February 1, was supposed to take stock of the Indian economy and give a vision for the future and a direction to the government for making policies. This year, the ES, other than taking stock of the economic situation, has also sought to give a policy signal like previous years as to how to revive the economy and restore the growth momentum to (…)

“Gota’s Goons” is now a popular phrase in Sri Lanka. This is not surprising, because Sri Lanka’s newly elected President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, does not believe in wasting time to get into action.
Let us talk about a recent manifestation of this Gotabaya dictum. In early December, as journalist Maduka, who was recently transferred to the Lake House Media Department (the Lake House group of media is Sri Lanka’s largest media group owned by the government), was attacked by trade union members (…)

MUSINGS
Nothing really to celebrate this new year start, as eerie build-ups overtake, as divisive tactics together with marked-targeted-killings take place. Signs of another round of partitioning out there. It’s about time to get out all possible works on the Partition, to try focus on the havoc it had heaped. Maybe then we can realise what could be in store for us, the people of this country, if don’t wake up, sit up and cry hoarse against the implementation of the CAA, NRC, NPR.
Also, (…)

by Shyam Menon
The following is the text of the 21st D.S. Borker Memorial Lecture held at IIC, New Delhi on August 24, 2019.
Professor Ashis Nandy, Professor Aseem Prakash, Mr Suhas Borker, the Trustees of the D.S. Borker Memorial Foundation, the Borker Family, members of the IIC, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
Let me first of all express my gratitude to Mr Suhas Borker for inviting me to deliver the 21st D.S. Borker Memorial Lecture. I am also grateful to Professor Ashis (…)

The women plant themselves, waving The Flag, flaunting The Preamble. In their settled do-or-die, They seem one with the earth they occupy. The chill, the calumny, nor inducement Dent the steel of their immovable intent. Their sentient innocence is more Than the lumbering slouch of the farmer: It is an armour we have not Encountered before. So how do we deal with this Searing stab of conscience at our door?
Let loose the dogs of war, we say. Throw mud till some tell-tale sticks. Let devoted (…)

by Prannv Dhawan and Ishaan Bansal
The results of the Jharkhand State Assembly elections represent a comprehensive electoral setback for the ruling political establishment. This setback is a major one not just because it is the first absolute electoral defeat faced by the rather triumphalist political dispensation after the landslide victory in the May 2019 Lok Sabha elections but also because it revives the traditional electoral logic of the Opposition-led, anti-BJP rainbow alliances (…)

by Sharad Rajimwale
When we notice that an attempt is being made these days by certain dour, orthodox forces, imagining themselves in the role of the exclusive voice of Hindu culture and religion, to enforce a uniform, homogenizing interpretation of it and using it as a clout to browbeat ‘others’, it is natural to feel that a macabre distortion is being introduced somewhere in manufac-turing this line of thinking and peddling it as the soul of Hindu way of life. Not only, one feels, is (…)