2021

(*This article is substantially based on Kumar (2020d) and is appearing in Raza G. and S. Singh (Ed.) (2021). The Second Pulse of the Pandemic: A sudden surge in scientific temper during the Covid-19 crisis. N Delhi: Anhad. Forthcoming.)
Introduction
The global battle with the Sars-Cov-2 virus is on for more than 18 months and in spite of vaccination it is continuing. Humankind has not yet got the problem under control. India is witnessing the persistence of the second wave with around (…)

August 5, 2021
Though the appointment of the new Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, as the Chief Minister of Karnataka was announced in quick time after the resignation of Yediyurappa, the constitution of the new ministry took a week, with Bommai being made to undertake two visits to meet the party high command. This delay was unnecessary as the new ministers should have been allowed to take up the pressing works arising out of floods in several parts of the state and the increasing covid 19 (…)

IMPRESSIONS
All said and done, Narendra Modiji must be having a grand time. He never meets the press — the only prime minister in the world with that distinction — nonetheless he is all over the papers and television. Terrible things happen in his watch but they do not affect him and he doesn’t really care As Senior Advocate in Delhi, Rajiv Nayar put it, there have been "unaccounted-for deaths, bodies mixed up in hospitals, mass cremations/burials — and the loss of hope." But the (…)

BOOK REVIEW
by Devaki Jain
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Home in the World: A Memoir
by Amartya Sen
Imprint; Allen Lane
Penguin Random House
July, 2021
480 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846144868
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846144868
available via Amazon
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In Home in the World, Amartya Sen, a dear friend and contemporary, has achieved the impossible. We are with him in Shantiniketan savouring its unique ambience. Tagore is there, and encourages our brave Amartya to improve his competence in Sanskrit. At (…)

by Sohini Chattopadhyay
July 30, 2021
Instead of sprinting in the 1940 Olympics, gifted athlete Ila Mitra was jailed and tortured for joining the famous Tebhaga peasant uprising in Bengal. Here is her story of immense courage
In 1940, when Helsinki was preparing to host the 12th Summer Olympics and Europe was preparing for war, deputy accountant general Nagendranath Sen received news through his colonial administration network that his 15-year-old daughter, Ila, was being considered (…)

by Pradip Baksi
“Bā rayat sulh Kun wa’z jang i khasm aiman nishīn / Z’ānki Shāhinshāh i ādil rā rayat lashkar ast.” (“Be at peace with subjects and sit safe from the attacks of foes / Because his subjects are the army of a just Shāhinshāh.”)—Saʿdī Shīrāzī (1258), Golestān, Book I, Story 6, the last 2 lines; quoted in Roy 1832:118.
1. This is a note about the contemporary importance of prashānt (quiet) mamatā (compassion) as rājdharma (principle for governance). This principle is (…)

Willy-nilly, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has walked into the corporate trap of Vedanta Limited (erstwhile Vedanta Resources plc), incorporated in UK, an NRI Anil Agarwal-led group, diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, Iron ore, steel, copper, aluminum, power, oil and gas and infamous for wanton violation of environmental norms. In 2018, mass protests against Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper subsidiary at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu for causing (…)

by Banhi Baran Ghosh*
Abstract
Pandemic engendered by Covid-19 rekindles the normative view of the Indian State. For more than two decades the State which has been embracing the ideology of neo-liberalism, suddenly has turned into advocating its transformative role in the guise of Dirgiste State. In this article an attempt has been made to recuperate the role of Indian State in this pandemic from a political economy perspective.
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For more than one year we have been experiencing (…)

by Ajit Mondal *
Development of education system during the British period was determined by the needs of the colonial powers. If we analyse the development, we will find that the colonial interests of the British always shaped the then educational policies of India. European trading companies began their commercial activities in India from 1600 A.D. Gradually the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and the English settled in some parts and commercial centres of India. Among them the English (…)

by Avay Shukla
30 July 2021
These last two weeks have been pretty confounding and humbling for me, both as a generic Indian and a stand-alone Shukla. It’s bad enough to be treated as an idiot by the government of the day, but it’s worse when you start suspecting that the government may be right after all. I no longer get Wordsworth’s intimations of immortality, what I sense now are Sambit Patra’s intimations of stupidity , thanks to Mr. Modi . His government has conveyed to all of (…)