2021

by Bharat Bhushan
Prime Minister Modi has described the just-completed third tier local body elections to the District Development Councils (DDCs) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) as realisation of Mahatama Gandhi’s vision of “Gram Swaraj”. However, they are hardly likely to satisfy local Kashmiri aspirations for the restoration of basic democratic freedoms or dampen international criticism.
The DDC’s governance mandate is limited to just five subjects– welfare, health, education, finance (…)

by Subir Sinha
21 December 2020
Labourers in India barely made ends meet before the pandemic. Many are now facing catastrophe.
Numerous news outlets and activist groups in India have reported an increase in trafficking, bonded labour, and slave-like working conditions in the past weeks. The two main stories were the rescue of young boys from a basement bangle factory in Rajasthan and Gujarat and the rescue of young girls from sex work and domestic servitude. Instead of seeing (…)

by K N Ninan
Joseph R. Biden, Jr and Kamala Harris created history by clinching the 2020 US Presidential elections. The electoral college which met on December 14 officially confirmed the election results with Biden getting 306 electoral votes as against 232 for Trump. Many records have been shattered. Joe Biden at 78 years will be the oldest person elected as US President. He is also the second catholic to be elected as US President, the first being John F. Kennedy in November 1960. Like (…)

Joe Biden has been confirmed as the Presidential-Elect by the Electoral College of the United States even as Donald Trump is yet to concede the election. This American election, taking place as it did during a pandemic, large protests and a historic political and economic crisis has been very misunderstood. Many are celebrating the election of Joe Biden as a historic victory against “fascism”. This is not only highly misleading but completely false. Commentators have put excessive attention (…)

by Vijay Kumar
One of the lessons from US Presidential election is that the robust federal principle of American Constitution has succeeded in rescuing the democracy from well orchestrated attempt to undermine it by paving the way for fascism with grave implications for democracy in other parts of the world. The system of securing majority in electoral college and its primacy over popular vote may sound odd and incongruous to outside observers, but the principle of federalism embodied in (…)

by Asha Buch, V Rekha and Jithin Mathew *
In the five-day (10 to14 December, 2020) international webinar on Rethinking the Role of Local Governments in a Post Covid 19 World, 65 papers were presented on a vast variety of subjects. Scientists, scholars and academicians were invited from north-east province to the western state of Rajasthan, from northern most union territory of Kashmir to the southern state of Kerala in India and from Japan to USA and Mexico. There were 18 scholars from (…)

MUSINGS
December 30, 2020
Humra Quraishi
I have never believed in ushering in the new- year on a frilly note. Somehow find it silly to go cooing ‘happy new year’ when there’s that dearth of happiness all around. And as this year comes to a close with painful cries from varying locales, there is an absolute ‘no’ from my end to come up with that formality-dripping one-liner: happy new year! Like every new year start, I plan to usher in this new year, sitting somewhat forlorn with hot (…)

In his Prison Notebooks, Antonio Gramsci addressed the fundamental question of formation of intellectuals in a social formation: “Are intellectuals an autonomous and independent social group, or does every social group have its own particular specialized category of intellectuals? The problem is a complex one, because of the variety of forms assumed to date by the real historical process of formation of the different categories of intellectuals”.
Actually, Gramsci was trying to understand (…)

India is a nation of second largest population in the world. China is the first largest populated nation with a land size bigger than India. India’s population according to 2011 census was 1210.2 million and China’s population was 1347.3 million. India’s land size is 3.287 million KMs, whereas China’s land size is 9.597 million KMs. China’s land size is three times bigger than that of India.
Within a small land size with a massive population India has been producing food, goods and (…)

Visva - Bharati University founded in 1921 just completed a hundred years. Located at the Abode of Peace, Shantiniketan, it has however seen much disturbance and violence between the civil society and the Varsity authorities over the past centenary year. With the West Bengal elections slated four months hence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the University Chancellor had quite a job at hand when he delivered the virtual centenary address to the students and teachers, one day before (…)