2021

Gross mismanagement in the state response to Covid-19 pandemic in India has come under the spotlight internationally and now sections of silent citizens of India have begun asking embarrassing questions (poets are beginning to speak out in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Modi).
But the authorities are (i) doing all to deflect the criticism through denial, through Whataboutism, and by claiming there is a conspiracy to defame India. (ii) using strong-arm tactics — using police and (…)

The Kolkattans woke up on Monday morning and learnt that two ministers, Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, a former minister, Madan Mitra and a former minister and former mayor of Kolkata, Sobhan Chattopadhyaya, had been arrested by the CBI in connexion with the Sting Operation carried out by one Mathew Samuel around 2014 in which some Trinamool Congress leaders were allegedly seen taking bribe. Though law and order is a State subject, the CBI effected the arrests with the help of the CISF, (…)

IMPRESSIONS
May 16, 2021
Tejasvi Surya is one of the brightest man in public life today. He is young, educated and intelligent. He is a good speaker and can carry an audience with ease. He is a lawyer by profession and a trained Carnatic musician. When such a man goes communally partisan, it can only be described as a tragedy. Tejasvi’s latest adventure into communal politics gives a Hindutva viewpoint even to corona and oxygen.
Hospital beds being allocated to Muslims is the newest (…)

by Arup Maharatna*
There are unending debates tinged with thick haziness as to what are the core common pan-Indian traits which could epitomise the so-called unity or the essence of this vast land of glaring diversities and heterogeneities in its geography, society, culture, religious practices, and history. What ultimately unites such intrinsically diverse and divisive India is one key question that reportedly drove Mahatma Gandhi, just before the launch of his countrywide mass (…)

by Paresh Chattopadhyay
Introduction
First, a word on terminology. To start with. there is a widespread idea that socialism and communism are two different, successive, societies, that socialism is the transition to communism, and precedes communism. However, for Marx (and Engels) socialism is neither the lower phase of nor the transition to communism. Socialism IS communism. In fact Marx calls capitalism itself the ‘simple transitional point ‘ or ‘transitional phase’ (to the higher (…)

by Jawed Naqvi
THERE are striking similarities between Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi, not the least their cynical methods of staying in power. But there are differences too. One rose, self-confessedly, from a humble tea vendor at the railway station, the other was a military commando before becoming a right-wing demagogue. The unlikely doppelgangers thrive on dividing people, polarising them along religious or ethnic lines even as they manipulate political outcomes to their (…)

UNICEF’s Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA)
NEW YORK/KATHMANDU, 8 MAY 2021 – “UNICEF strongly condemns the horrific attack earlier today near the Sayed Ul-Shuhada high school, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The attack claimed the lives of dozens of schoolchildren, mostly girls, and severely injured many more.
“Violence in or around schools is never acceptable. Schools must be havens of peace where children can play, learn and socialize safely.
“Children must never be the target of violence. (…)

by P. S. Jayaramu
There is speculation again in Karnataka about replacing B. S. Yeddyurappa (BSY as he is known popularly) as the Chief Minister. Needless to say the root cause for all such rumours lies in the fact that the BJP High Command allowed Yediyurappa to become Chief Minister in July 2019 after the fall of the Congress-Janata Dal Coalition Government though he was well past 75 years, breaking its unwritten rule that no person shall hold public office, other than being a member of (…)

It was in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, I have seen a graphic description of floating dead bodies of the Indians: "...at the entrance to the vast Bay of Bengal, we occasionally saw corpses floating on the surface. These were the dead of Indian towns, carried out to the sea by the Ganges. The vultures, the only undertakers in that country, had not been able to devour them completely. However, the sharks could be relied upon to finish that grisly task." (Part II, (…)

by Arun Srivastava
In his speeches Narendra Modi usually has a discernible note of boast, eulogy and self-flattery. Since he is sceptical of others he personally carries out the task of self-promotion. His greatest asset is his skill of oratory, the art to articulate. This is clearly manifest in urban middle class Hindus and rich people continue to repose their trust in him notwithstanding sharp decline in his charisma and popularity.
His self-boasting speeches are replete with rhetoric; (…)